Reticence
by Kraven Ergeist
Summary: Post-Rebuild 3.33 - After narrowly avoiding Fourth Impact, Asuka is left to wander back to the last remnants of humanity on foot, dragging an unwilling Shinji and an unwitting Rei along with her. Shinji slowly comes to terms with Kaworu's death, Rei tries to understand what she used to be in her past life, and Asuka does whatever she can to stay alive for just another day.
1. Chapter 1

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 1

* * *

Night was falling over the long dead remains of Tokyo-3. What had once been streets, buildings, parking lots and shopping centers overlapping with concealed nuclear fallout barricades, heavy caliber gun turrets, missile silos, and enough munitions and heavy artillery to start a world war several times over had given way to the result of that very war. Though the exact course of events that lead to the catastrophe which had reduced the world to rubble and a handful of survivors would probably remain a mystery to all, it was pretty clear exactly who the catalyst was who had set these events into motion.

Captain Shikinami glanced up from her Atmospheric LCL Oximeter, which chirped in distress at the amount of LCL in the air, and stared up at the darkening sky with her one good eye. Beneath their feet, and stretching out for what appeared to be forever, was the dry, dusty wasteland that was once the Kanagawa Prefecture. Her scarlet plug suit offered little in the way of protection from the elements, but the air was warm and dry, and there was little worry about freezing to death, at least during the day. It would drop significantly by night however, and they were still several kilometers from the nearest Lilin encampment, and it was slow going with all the extra baggage that that the former Third Child represented.

He hadn't spoken a word since she had hauled him bodily out of his entry plug, his eyes unfocused, like he was in a state of perpetual shell shock. Asuka wasn't a medical expert, but she'd experienced enough of it firsthand to see the signs of an acute stress reaction in the boy. But she'd also had enough training in field medicine to recognize that his physical health was well within acceptable limits.

So as long as he was able to put one foot in front of the other, then she wasn't going to lose any sleep over his mental condition, even if she had to practically drag him by the hand towards their destination. And besides, it wasn't as if his physical health was even her primary concern at the moment. She would have been negligent in her duty if she had simply left him to die, but she was still WILLE's top pilot. If it came down to it, her own survival came first. And after everything he had done – and failed to do – just in the last day, Asuka found that it was duty and duty alone that made her even lift a finger to help the Third Child, for all the waste of oxygen he was.

At least the Ayanami Type that had been following them around wasn't slowing her down, and was keeping mercifully silent throughout the trek. It hadn't said or done anything besides follow steadily behind her like a stray cat. Or a robot on standby. Captain Shikinami wasn't really concerned that it would attack them or otherwise hamper their progress; after what she had learned about the Ayanami Series, she doubted the clone had enough willpower to do much of anything that it wasn't directly ordered to do. And Asuka had already checked its bag and plug suit for bugs or communication devices, so it wasn't liable to receive any orders from NERV, at least not without her knowing about it. And if luck favored them (she wasn't optimistic, but statistically, they had to luck out at some point), assuming they ever made it back to the Wunder, WILLE might actually be able to dissect something useful from the clone.

Asuka slipped her chirping ALO back into her rucksack.

"We'll camp here for the night," she announced plainly, sliding her pack off her shoulder and kneeling down to rummage through it for her survival gear. She pulled out a flashlight, a canteen of water, some canned rations, and a rolled up Mylar blanket, setting them out where she knelt.

She glanced uncertainly at her two travelling companions. Shinji would be absolutely no help, she knew, but the Ayanami clone might at least have some basic survival skills.

"You," she pointed at the blue haired girl in the black plug suit. "Do you know how to start a fire?"

The clone stared back at her, blankly.

Asuka sighed. "Okay, how about looking for firewood? Otherwise, you're eating cold trail rations."

The clone just blinked.

Asuka felt a vein throbbing in her head. "Looking for drinking water?"

Another blank stare.

"Pitching a tent?"

Silence.

Asuka took a deep breath. This was not worth losing her temper, she knew. Whoever designed this clone probably didn't intend for it to survive for longer than it was needed to pilot Unit 09. Disgusted, Asuka shoved the rolled up Mylar blanket towards the simulacrum.

"How about unfurling a blanket?"

Rei reached out to inspect the proffered silver roll. After giving it some thought, she slowly unrolled it, and with little ado, had it unfurled and waving lazily in the wind. She then fixed the Captain with a look that unmistakably translated to 'what now?'

"_Ach, du lieber_…" Asuka grunted, snatching the shimmering silver sheet back from her. "What do they _teach_ you at NERV? How to successfully imitate a lobotomy patient?"

Rei threw a quick glance towards Shinji, as if searching for elaboration. No explanation was forthcoming, however, as the boy's eyes remained unfocused and untracking, his arms hanging limply at his sides, his head hung low.

Asuka let out another sigh. It would appear the burden would fall squarely on her shoulders to get the job done. Well, she thought somberly, that was certainly something she was used to at this point.

"Okay, give me your pack…" Asuka said dismissively, reaching out with an expectant arm towards the clone.

Rei surrendered the rucksack, and Asuka relieved Shinji of his own, and she emptied their combined contents onto the dry, dusty dirt.

"Alright," she said when she had all their supplies organized the way she wanted. The light was fading fast, and she already had to use her flashlight to see the other two clearly. "You two stay put. I'll go find _something_ to make a fire out of."

She went off in search of something flammable. She didn't like her odds, given the state of the landscape out here. It was mostly dirt, dust and rocks as far as the eye could see. It was fourteen years too late to find anything that had once been living anywhere this close to ground zero. The chance of finding something that could hold a flame looked pretty slim, but it was still worth the effort if she could get some extra warmth, and didn't want to have to rely on flashlights until sunrise.

She found something that looked like it may have been a twisted root, and trying tugging it out of the dirt. After a good hard yank, it came free, its other end a splintered mess. She turned it a few times, before she tucked it under her arm, satisfied that it would make good tinder, and moved on. As she continued her search, she glanced back at where she had left the other two sitting. She had left one of the flashlights on where they sat and had it pointed upwards, which highlighted the trace amounts of dust in the air that the light breeze was kicking up, making it easy enough to find in the darkness. Still, she really had no guarantee what the status of the camp would be upon her return. She had left the two other pilots with instructions to keep beneath their space blankets and to eat their cold trail rations if it took her more than an hour to make it back, but experience had instilled her with a healthy dose of suspicion, and she wasn't entirely positive that she wouldn't find the two of them dead by the time she got back.

But her paranoia was unfounded, as she returned to find both of them exactly where she had left them, as she carried an armload of unhealthy looking twigs, roots, branches and sticks, twisted in every way you could imagine. She deposited her haul in a pile between the three of them, and arranged them in a way that she thought would hold up. It was slow work, having to hold her flashlight at various angles to inspect the setup, but finally she got to her feet, satisfied, before reaching into her bag for a knife.

Asuka turned to approach Rei, knife in hand, who was seated on her Mylar blanket where she had left her, and she tucked the flashlight between her shoulder and cheekbone, freeing one of her hands.

"Now hold still…" she ordered, reaching for the clone with her free hand.

Asuka was surprised, however, when the First Child's hand snapped up to grab the Captain by the wrist, a deadly look reflecting off her red eyes from the flashlight.

Asuka smirked. "Heh…glad to see you have _some_ survival instincts. Relax; I just need some of your hair for kindling."

The clone seemed confused by this.

"Why not use your own?" the Ayanami Type asked. They were the first words Asuka had heard from the creature since leaving her Eva. "You have far more than I do."

"I'm not even dignifying that with an answer," Asuka snorted, before freeing her arm from the clone's grip and taking hold of a lock of the Ayanami Type's hair from behind her left ear, and slicing off a good three inches of it.

Captain Shikinami got to work getting the fire started, while the clone fiddled with the hair behind her ear, as if confused as to what exactly Asuka had just done to her. Well, she thought, let her wonder, as she got to work adding tinder to the smoking kindling.

Soon, the fire was going strong enough for Asuka to shut off the flashlights, and she got to work prying the tin lids halfway off of their rations and sliding them partway into the fire to heat up. Once the contents began to steam and bubble, she used one of her unused sticks to prod the three tins out of the fire, and let them cool down.

"Here," she set one of the three canteens next to the Ayanami Type, who was still fiddling with her hair. "We have enough food and water for maybe a day or two, tops. I don't need you passing out, so keep yourself hydrated."

Rei looked at the proffered canteen, as if she had never seen it before, but eventually took it and put the opening to her lips, tilting it back to take a small sip.

Asuka set the second canteen next to Shinji.

"That goes for you too," she said brusquely.

The Third Child had still not so much as moved from his sitting position, with his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, his head buried against his legs.

Asuka snorted at the sight he presented, and turned and retrieved a small, metal spork from their supplies and prodded the contents of one of their steaming dinner trays, which contained about an airline food tray sized portion of watery, over-salted beef-flavored nutrient paste and dry bread-like crackers to soak it up with. Not the most appetizing fare by any standard, but it would still taste better now that it was warm.

"Alright," she said, testing the tin to make sure it was cool enough to touch, before handing it to Rei. "Food's as close to cooked as it's going to be."

Rei blinked at the tin in her hands, before obediently shoveling the nutrient paste into her mouth with the accompanying metal spork.

Asuka placed an identical tin of steaming foodstuff next to Shinji.

"Eat," she commanded, simply.

Shinji did not seem inclined to move a muscle.

Asuka was feeling her patience begin to wear thin.

"Shinji, if I have to force feed you, I will," she snapped, with a touch of menace in her voice. "Eat."

Shinji acted like she hadn't said a word.

Asuka had just about had it.

"Listen!" she growled, grabbing a tuft of his hair and yanking his head upright, causing him to wince slightly. "I have half a mind to leave you out here to die! But like it or not, it's _my_ responsibility to at least _try_ to get you back to WILLE in one piece!"

She leaned down and shoved her face right up into his as he winced, unable to open his eyes to meet her gaze.

"It is _not_, however, my responsibility to _pamper_ you or to _baby_ you or to make sure your _feelings_ aren't hurt!"

She was shouting now. Rei was watching the one-sided exchange with silent attentiveness. Shinji was still wincing in pain from Asuka's grip on his hair, but otherwise was still completely inert.

"Now shape up!" she demanded, grabbing him by the jaw with her other hand, slowly forcing his mouth open. "I've got enough to worry about out here without also having to worry about you slowing me down because of how malnourished you are! Now _eat_!"

Shinji began to lean away from her grip on his jaw, and one of his eyes slowly began to peek open.

"Rnnng…" he grunted finally in irritation. "…Why…why should I even care?"

Asuka relented slightly and leaned in closer to glare into his eye with her own.

"What?" she demanded.

Shinji pulled his head away from her completely, glaring back at her with a ferocity that she hadn't seen from him for the entire time she'd ever known him.

"Why the _hell_ should I even care!?" Shinji blared in outrage.

Asuka's scowl darkened at the outburst as she squeezed her hand into a fist.

"Listen you little brat," Asuka breathed in a deadly tone. "I'm only going to say this once…"

"Why bother?" Shinji spat, looking away. "You're just going to yell at me again! That's all you _ever_ do! But none of you have given me a _single_ reason to care anymore!"

She grabbed him by the collar of his black and blue plug suit, yanking him forward on his knees and up towards her.

"I don't give a flying _fuck_ what you care about!" she glowered.

"Then why should _I_ give anything more about the _rest_ of you!?" he demanded in retort. "You and Misato and practically _everyone_ I've run into has kept me _prisoner_ ever since I got out of Unit 01!"

He tugged free of Asuka's grip (though it felt more like she just simply dropped him) and he fell back onto his haunches, looking away in anger and frustration.

"The only one…" he began to sob. "The _only_ one who ever even treated me like I was human anymore was Kaworu! And now he's…he's…"

He clenched his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face.

"And now he's _dead_! The _one_ person left in the world who actually _gave a shit_ about me, and now he's _dead_!"

Asuka towered over his crumpled form, her one good eye hidden behind her hair in a dark cloud of rage.

"Do _you_ honestly mean to tell me that you think you're the _only_ one who's lost someone during this war?"

"Of course not," he muttered, his fiery mood dissipating into red-eyed agitation. "But you're a fighter, Asuka. Hell, you're a Captain! You've trained to be a pilot your whole life!"

He placed a hand on his chest.

"Me? I was just some kid! I was _never_ pilot material! And you _all_ knew it! _You_ could tell I was going to be a failure from the _moment_ you laid eyes on me! But everyone _still_ told me to pilot!"

Asuka still had not moved from her standing position, though her fists were clenching tighter with each passing moment.

"And you think _that_ somehow makes you _completely_ blameless then?" Asuka breathed in scarcely concealed fury.

Shinji shook his head.

"No," he growled under his breath, his throat dry from disuse and dehydration. "Kaworu explained everything to me. Or at least, more than I knew before. And you're right. I _am_ the one who caused all of this. But do you want to know what the _difference_ is between me and the rest of you?"

Asuka crossed her arms, un-amused. "Enlighten me."

Shinji turned his eyes up to glare back at her.

"My worst crimes - my _worst_ crimes - have _only_ ever been born out of _ignorance_," he rasped.

His eyes were red with tears, and his voice was half scream, half sob.

"I had _just _seen you nearly get _crushed_ to death by my own Eva! And I was about to lose Ayanami too!"

He turned to glanced at the Ayanami Type sitting across from them both, her eyes unblinkingly fixed on the two of them.

"All I wanted…_all_ I wanted to do was save her…" Shinji breathed.

The Rei clone shifted uncomfortably in the firelight.

"And I _refuse_ to apologize for doing what _I_ thought was right!" Shinji wheezed, turning to stare defiantly back at Asuka. "You can blame me for being ignorant of the consequences for my actions, but you don't put the keys to the apocalypse in the hands of some kid who only knows that his friends are dying all around him! And if you do, you don't _keep_ him in the dark about it! NERV and WILLE and everyone who knew about Unit-01 shares in the blame for what happened that day! Cause _nowhere_ in the operation manual did it say _anything_ about starting Third Impact from the entry plug by making a fucking _wish_!"

Shinji was gasping for breath now, his voice panting and wheezing. Rei's eyes were fixated on him, as something inside of her seemed to try to comprehend what his words entailed. And Asuka continued to scowl down upon him with a cold, hard stare.

After everything that had happened, he had the gall to try to shift the blame onto all of them? After spending fourteen years doing nothing while the rest of them fought and died because of _his_ childishness…

She took a breath.

And another.

"All you've proven, Shinji…" she muttered in scarcely contained wrath. "Is that you're even more of a danger to the world then anyone already believed…"

Shinji looked up, still breathless from his outburst, his eyes still red.

"Then why are you even keeping me alive?" he demanded. "I didn't _choose_ to be where I am, Asuka. I don't _choose_ to pilot Eva, I didn't _choose_ to start Third Impact, and I didn't _choose_ to survive it. _Everything_ that you hate about me was something that was chosen for me!"

"Fine then," Asuka spat in indignation. "You made the best decision you could under the circumstances. That decision still wiped out a nearly all of humanity."

Asuka leaned in once again to glare at him with her good eye.

"You may not be the one at fault for this," she breathed nastily. "But you're the one who's going to pay for it."

Shinji's eyes widened as he shuddered beneath her gaze. He could swear he could make out an iridescent blue hiding behind her eye-patch. He bit his lip and swallowed, quavering beneath her, only able to wonder what she would do next.

"And it won't be with your life," Asuka continued, reaching down to grab his food tin, her words dripping with venom. "Your life isn't worth a _fraction_ of the people who've suffered at your incompetence. No, WILLE is going to find _something _for you to do, some small role for you to play and maybe start making amends for all the damage you've caused. And until you've done something about that, your life is _not_ yours to end however you wish. Only after Colonel Katsuragi says that she's finished with you…only after WILLE has extracted every last modicum of usefulness out of you, and you have nothing more to offer us other then your cold, dead body…_then_ you have our permission to die."

Shinji felt himself break into a cold sweat. He had never heard such earnest, cold-hearted malice from someone, particularly Asuka. He couldn't conjure up the words the respond to her, much less keep her gaze. All he could do was flinch as she shoved the cooling food tin rudely into his hands.

"Now _eat_."

Shinji shuddered as she stepped away to get her own serving. Asuka had scared him before, but never like that. It was just another reminder that things would never go back to the way they were.

Just another reason to hate himself.

He stared glumly at his food He'd been subsisting on the exact same fare during his stay at NERV, and he had absolutely no desire to put a single bite of it into his mouth. But he did it anyway. He couldn't think of anything else to do. Asuka had suffered at his hands. Maybe not directly, but enough that he felt like he still owed her something. She may hate him. Misato may hate him. Ritsuko and everyone at WILLE…they all may have hated him. But he still owed them something.

So he ate. And resigned to survive another night longer.

* * *

A/N: Inspirational thanks for this fic goes out to "Some Nights" by Fun.

Asuka's line, of course, inspired by Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.

Stay tuned.


	2. Chapter 2

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 2

* * *

"Who was she?"

Shinji awoke. He had not been sleeping all too soundly, and stirred easily awake. The fire had dimmed to embers, and stars glimmered overhead, their cool dim light casting the faintest illumination of the blue haired girl at his side, her face seemingly hovering in the night air, her black plug suit blending in seamlessly with the colorless night.

Shinji sat up, knowing that sleep would be evading him regardless of plans he had. The sadness and the shock he had been carrying with him had slowly been corroding into bitterness since Kaworu's death. It was hard not to direct his ire at this Ayanami clone, this pale copy of the girl he had once known…and had only recently learned was an incomplete clone of his own mother, whose soul resided in…

Something turned in his stomach, and he looked away.

"Who?" he asked wearily.

Asuka slept just opposite the fire. He had no doubt that she had woken instantly at Rei's voice and was listening in to every word.

"The real Ayanami…" the Ayanami Type muttered despondently. As Shinji's eyes adjusted to the pale glow of the fire coals and the scarce luminosity of the starred night sky, he could make out her form standing over him, her arms held tightly together around her waist.

Just like his Rei had done.

Shinji shuddered.

"Who was she?" the Ayanami Type repeated.

Shinji stifled the urge to lie back down and roll over.

"I really…don't feel like talking about her…" he admitted, hanging his head, focusing his eyes on the flickering flames of the fire.

A long moment went by as he waited for Rei to go back to sleep, but she did not move a muscle. Shinji sighed. It appeared that she would not be dissuaded. The problem was, however, that even if he was interested in talking about her, he wasn't sure what exactly to say, especially to this clone. How do you describe a person to an incomplete copy of that very person?

"Well, uh…" he said, stammering over his words. "She looked like you…"

Shinji's grimace was palpable. He felt like an absolute idiot for making such an obvious claim. As he stewed in his awkward stupor, however, he failed to notice Rei reach a hand up to touch the hair behind her left ear where Asuka had cut it earlier.

"How was she different?" Rei asked, interrupting his fretting.

Shinji looked up again. Again, the differences that came to mind were difficult to put into words. At least, not without sounding impolite.

"She, um…" he muttered, pondering what to say. "She spoke out a little bit more than you do. Not much…but she would talk to me…"

"Like I am doing now?"

Shinji's ears colored red. He supposed he wasn't presenting his case very well.

"Well…yeah…" he stammered. "I guess…"

Rei did not seem quite satisfied yet.

"You attempted to rescue her from the 10th Angel," she stated simply.

Shinji felt something cold well up deep inside him. He told himself it was just the night air, and pulled the Mylar blanket over his shoulders.

"I…tried to…"

Rei said nothing in response. She still had not moved a muscle that he could see. She just continued to stare at him with those deep, crimson eyes. Behind those eyes, he saw the obvious question she had, but seemed disinclined to ask.

Why?

"She…she didn't deserve to die like that…" Shinji explained simply.

Rei's head turned slightly to side, the calm stoic face silently pressing him to go on.

"I'd…failed so much already by that point…" he said, lowering his eyes to stare at the orange-red coals. "I let Asuka get hurt by my own Eva…I abandoned Misato and everyone at NERV…and then I…"

He turned his gaze towards the girl, tears filling his eyes.

"I saw _you_…I mean, the _other _you…get _eaten alive_…"

He shuddered again and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. The Mylar blanket was doing nothing against the cold wind.

"I was so _tired_ of _failing_…" he muttered. "So _sick_ of being _powerless_ to do _anything_…"

He sniffed, looking up at the girl, whose expression had changed very little, but he thought he could see the faintest glimmer of inquisitiveness. He had to remind himself that she was an incomplete person, and probably couldn't understand the meaning behind his words, the emotion he was trying to convey.

"Am I…making any sense?" he asked helplessly through his tears.

Rei blinked. He could almost see the pieces trying to fit together in her head, but her deep red eyes kept the true depths of her thoughts completely hidden from him. He supposed this was all a lot to put on her all at once. All she had wanted to know about was her former self, the girl she had been designed to replace. She didn't need to hear this sob story, and almost certainly couldn't begin to process it. Hell, Shinji could hardly process it himself, and he had been stewing over it all for days on end.

She surprised him, however, when she spoke again.

"Why are you crying?"

Shinji froze. He was suddenly back in time, right after the battle with the 6th Angel. Rei had just saved him from certain fiery death by placing her Eva in front of his own, and nearly burning to a crisp inside her own Eva as a result. He was desperately prying open the seal of her entry plug, frying his own hands right through the rubber gloves of his plug suit. He was yanking the hatch open and climbing inside, hoping against hope that she was alright.

_Why are you crying?_

That was what she had asked him when she saw him that night.

It was too much for him to take. He burst into tears, curling up and burying his face into the hard, stony ground beneath his blanket.

"Because I _still_ failed her!" he sobbed uncontrollably.

It was as if reality itself had been too much to bear, and was slowly coming to him in chunks as his unconscious ability to stifle it all began to wear down. After everything he'd learned from Misato, from Asuka, from Ritsuko, from Fuyutsuki and from Kaworu, the state of the world as he knew it, and how he had shaped it, was simply unimaginable. But then, Kaworu had offered him a solution – pilot his Eva one last time, and he could make everything better. He could fix the world as he knew it. It didn't matter that he didn't understand, or that the process itself didn't make sense, or that he had no real reason to trust that the solution would work; it had been a way _out_. And he had so desperately wanted a way out that he had been willing to go to whatever length it required to do it.

In the end, the solution he had been given had just been another lie, another pitfall for him to stumble into, and do even more damage to the world in the process. Even Kaworu had seen it, but Shinji had been so desperate, so addled with grief, that he had refused to believe that it was all just a pipe-dream, a carrot for him to follow that allowed him to believe that there had been a way out of all this. He had been so blinded, so determined, that Kaworu had sacrificed himself in the process of cleaning up after Shinji's mistake.

It was as if Shinji was surrounded by shards of broken glass, each one of which represented someone he cared about. Not only did every move he make result in him cutting himself on another of the razor-sharp shards, but also did irreparable damage to whoever happened to be the unlucky soul he had inadvertently stepped on.

The fear had been crippling. His mind had nearly broken. He had walled himself off from the world, petrified of doing anything at all lest he risk hurting himself and others simply by putting one foot in front of the other. He just couldn't win. No matter what he did, someone seemed to get hurt, and the blame always seemed to fall on his shoulders.

It was his fault. His fault the world was the way it was. Misato was right. Asuka was right. He had nearly wiped out existence as he knew it. The entire human race, reduced to a group of freedom fighters, and the last remnants of his father's company. Everything he had known of his life before that, erased in its entirety.

All for the cause of saving one girl - one girl who he had _still_ ultimately failed.

It was too much. It was too much for him to bear.

"Have you truly failed her?"

Shinji's head was buried in his arms, so he couldn't quite be sure he had heard her correctly. When he managed to wipe away enough tears to peer at her through one eye, however, he saw the question etched on her face.

"I…I don't think I could have done anything _but_ fail her…" he croaked, his voice once again a hoarse rasp. "Fuyutsuki…the Vice Commander…said that she was _absorbed_ by Eva Unit 01. Just like…"

He buried his head once again, closing his eyes from the world.

"Just like my mom…" he shuddered, feeling sick to his stomach. "There's…there's no way of getting her out now. She's stuck in there. For good."

Rei seemed to contemplate that for a moment, before her eyes returned to him.

"If she is within Unit 01, then she is not dead," she said simply.

Shinji shook his head. He knew this clone wouldn't understand how he felt.

"She might as well be…" he whimpered.

Rei seemed unaffected by the sentiment. "You succeeded in rescuing her from the 10th Angel. Had you done nothing, she would have been bound to its fate. Instead, she resides within Eva Unit 01, which yet remains."

She tilted her head slightly as she studied his face, as if still curious about the presence of his tears.

"Is this failure?"

Shinji was still reliving the past few days in his head, and wasn't all too keen on listening to consolation prizes. He knew that later, when he thought it over, this Rei would be right. It was marginally better to be a discorporate soul trapped within an Eva that was still around than a discorporate soul trapped within an Angel that would have either been destroyed by NERV, or succeeded in reaching Lillith and destroying all of creation anyway.

But right then, he just didn't care. This Rei's words weren't enough to console him. He didn't want some vague idea of the girl he'd left behind that he could ponder over whenever he was near his Eva. He wanted the real her. He wanted her to be right there next to him, as this clone was.

It seemed that the Ayanami Type was sensing this as well.

"You should sleep," she advised, turning away to return to her own blanket.

Shinji watched her black plug suit fade out of sight, even though she was laying no more than a stone's throw away, before rolling over to turn his eyes away from either of the girls beside him. He knew he wouldn't be getting any more sleep that night. He wondered if he would ever sleep again.

So his Rei still existed, in some vague sense. So the sealed remains of his Eva still contained her soul, just as it contained his mother's soul. Like a coma victim, their essence may be preserved in the hollow shell of their body, but no conscious thought ever came to the surface. She would never be the Rei that he remembered. He would never again be able to share a meal with her, hear her speak, or see her smile. Having her back in this state was poor justification for the sacrifices Shinji had inadvertently forced on the world to bring her to this state. He had essentially sent everything he had known onto the path of destruction just to bring back a shell of the girl he once knew.

There was no way Asuka or Misato or Ritsuko or anyone could forgive him for that.

So caught up in his thoughts, Shinji failed to notice that this was the most he had ever heard this Rei speak since he'd met her.

* * *

Shinji was roused by an abrupt kick to the hindquarters.

"Get up," he heard Asuka's voice say behind him. "It's time to go."

Shinji's eyes flickered open as he blinked to take in their surroundings. It was a gray and cloudy morning, and the dim light offered poor illumination, but there wasn't much to pack, and Asuka words hit like a lash as he and Rei packed up their gear and prepared for the next leg of their journey.

By about the second hour, the sun had risen, and was beating down on them with a harsh degree of heat. Captain Shikinami checked her ALO every hour or so, but so far they were still too deep in the LCL soaked atmosphere to hope for rescue. Their best hope for the Lilin encampment at the edge of the old Kanagawa Prefecture, which was still too far out to see. But at least Shinji had deigned to walk on his own now without her having to lead him by the hand.

By around mid day, the sun had taken its toll on the group, and Asuka could see Shinji beginning to flag from the heat. The Ayanami Type wasn't as transparent, but even she was breathing harder than usual. Their black suits were absorbing more of the heat from the sun than Asuka's, and even she was beginning to tire.

"Let's take a break," she declared, setting down her pack and retrieving her canteen.

Rei knelt gracefully and sipped at her water supply. By contrast, Shinji sat down on his haunches, retrieving his own canteen and began gulping it down.

"Go easy on that, you dolt!" Asuka barked from her seat on a nearby rock. "That's all the water you get!"

Shinji stopped drinking and gave her a wounded puppy look.

Asuka ground her teeth together. Keeping tabs on Shinji was like monitoring a toddler. It was like he was regressing as a human being. At this rate, he wouldn't even be able to look out for himself, much less be of any use to WILLE.

"Look," she huffed, giving him a stern look. "I don't hate you, alright?"

Shinji gave her a cautious look.

"You said that I hated you," Asuka maintained. "I don't. I'm plenty pissed at you, and I still expect you to make amends for this mess we're in. But I don't hate you. Got it?"

Shinji just blinked, looking more confused than ever.

Asuka sighed. "Ughhhh…Four-Eyes was right. You really are just a dumb puppy. And hating you for being this big an idiot is like hating a dog for barking. It's annoying, but…what can you really do about it?"

She screwed the cap back onto her water and got back to her feet.

"That doesn't mean I'm going any easier on you though," she declared, pointing a finger at him. "A dog can be trained, and so can you. So from now on, watch what I do. You do as I say, when I say it, and you learn from me. And learn well. Cause this isn't the world that you left behind."

She stared at him with her good eye and pointed back in the direction they came.

"The Tokyo-3 that you remember?" she said, darkly. "Back when we were all pilots? That was just _boot camp_."

She pointed at the ground she stood on.

"_This_ is the war. We're fighting it every day. And we're fighting for the very survival of our species. There are less than a million of us left in the world. Make no mistake: it wouldn't even _take_ a Fourth Impact to wipe us out completely. And you very nearly caused just that."

She stepped over to him and towered over him as he sat back, looking up at her, terrified.

"Do you understand just how much shit we're all in?" she demanded. "Just how much is at stake? How much of an impact even _one_ little misstep can have at this point in game?"

Shinji wrapped his arms around his knees and lowered his eyes defensively.

"I understood that…from the first day it all started…" he muttered.

Asuka put her hands on her hips.

"Then you know that you can't afford to be making any more childish mistakes!" she said definitively. "You can't go back, and you can't stay where you are. The only thing you can do anymore is move _forward_. You either walk with us, or walk with NERV. And you've seen just what NERV wants to do."

She crouched down in front of him so she could peer into his eyes.

"Like it or not, Shinji," she said, more softly this time, "Your father is a criminal. You listen to what he or any of his cronies have to say, and you'll only be that much closer to dooming us all."

She threw a mean look at the Ayanami Type.

"And that goes for this clone over here too," Asuka snorted, looking back at Shinji's cowering form. "Whatever she tells you, Shinji, don't you dare forget one thing – she's something that your father created. Believe whatever you want about her, or who she really is, but you can know _this_ for certain: she was put on this Earth to do your father's bidding. And that makes her an enemy of WILLE."

The Ayanami Type did not seem to respond to Asuka's accusation with anything more than its usual stare. Captain Shikinami half expected to get some sort of reaction of outrage or at least contempt. That would have been a _normal_ person's response. But instead, all she got was staunch stoicism.

Asuka snorted. She was once again reminded why she didn't miss having to deal with all this anymore.

The same could have almost been said for Shinji, except deep down, Asuka knew that she still had something akin to hope for the boy. Shinji at least, she believed, could aspire to more if he'd just get off his ass and stop moping all the time. The Ayanami Type, however, would never grow or become anything more than what it was. It was the sad truth behind the Ayanami program, she knew. And it was unhealthy for someone in Shinji's mental state to remain so fixated on something as temporary and stagnant as a clone of a clone of a woman who had effectively died in his infancy. She represented an eternal escape back into the halcyon days of childhood, which was as illusory as it was futile. And if Shinji ever hoped to grow up, he would have to leave behind the trappings of his childhood, troubled as they were, and that included his memory of Rei.

It didn't look as though Shinji would be taking this advice any time soon, however.

"We should get moving," Asuka decided, getting back to her feet. "Pack up. Break's over."

Shinji did not seem inclined to obey. He was still sitting with his head pressed to his knees. He was as unresponsive once again as when she had dragged him out of his entry plug.

"Did you hear me?" Asuka demanded, hands on her hips. "I said it's time to go!"

He remained absolutely still.

Asuka sighed. He seemed to have regressed once again. She supposed the middle of nowhere was no place to be trying to drill any kind of valuable life lessons into the boy's head, not when she needed him to move more than she needed him to listen.

"Shinji," she said, grabbing him by the shoulder. "Come on, let's go."

When she pulled his arm loose from its grip, she saw a vacant look in his eyes that she was all too familiar with.

"_Ach du Schande_…" she grumbled to herself. She did not want to have to drag his ass for the rest of their journey.

She turned to the Ayanami Type.

"Hey you," she barked. "Would you tell this idiot to get his rear in gear?"

Captain Shikinami wasn't sure what she expected the Ayanami Type to do, but it seemed she would never know the answer, for at that moment, her ears detected the far off sound of an engine roaring high in the sky.

She swore and darted her gaze back and forth, looking for cover that simply didn't exist out here in the bleak desolation of the wastes of Kanegawa. The roaring began to increase, and Asuka finally surrendered to the fact that they would most likely be spotted one way or another, and reached into her rucksack and withdrew a pair of micro-binoculars. She pointed her gaze at the sky towards the far-off sound of engines roaring, decided that, if they were going to be found, they should at least know if it was by a friendly or not.

She finally spotted her target - a single VTOL craft, seemingly on patrol. It did not seem to be flying from the direction of Tokyo-3, but that wasn't enough to allay any of Shikinami's fears just yet.

Then she spotted the familiar sigil of WILLE on the side of the craft and she smiled.

She immediately reached into her bag to pull out a flare gun and shot off a glowing, vibrant orb into the sky, which burst into a bright red signal.

"HEY!" she shouted, waving her arms around wildly, trying to get the pilot's attention.

The VTOL wobbled its wings in response, before banking around to circle back towards them.

Asuka smiled back at the Ayanami Type.

"Scratch that last order, lobotomy-girl," she grinned. "It looks like we just got a ride."

* * *

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 3

* * *

Unfortunately, the Wunder was still undergoing repairs from its last battle, and was currently well out of the small VTOL's flight range for it to take them there. So the pilot had little choice but to take the three children back to its base of operations, which just happened to be the same outpost that they were headed to anyway.

Lilin Outpost Naraka. The closest that WILLE dared get to ground zero.

Of course, having been marching around this close to the remains of Tokyo-3, with all the LCL particles in the air, the pilots still had to go through decontamination before being let into the actual base. And so the three of them stood in a small, empty room in various degrees of dispassion and mild contempt as they were systematically sprayed down, pressure steamed, and submerged in decontaminant, and then doing it all over again before they were even brought in.

"Remember the good old days when we used to have to strip down to our skivvies for this?" Asuka grumbled dryly to no one in particular as they were air-dried, her hair still damp.

"Man, those were the days," came a familiar-sounding voice over the speakers.

Shinji looked up, trying to discern the speaker's identity.

Asuka just cracked a smile.

"Would be just like you to take some kind of sick pleasure from something like that," she said snarkily.

Finally, the inner doors finally opened with a hiss, revealing the concrete walls of the paramilitary industrial compound within, and a familiar figured stepped into view.

He had changed significantly since Shinji had last seen him. His ponytail was gone, and his five-o'clock shadow had grown out into more of a stubbly beard, and he now wore set of rimless glasses. But his roguish smile was still there.

"There's so little left to take pleasure in anymore these days, Asuka," Kaji said with a smirk. "You can't fault me for getting it where I can."

"Can too," Asuka stuck out her chin with a laugh.

Kaji just laughed.

Shinji blinked in surprise. "Mister Kaji…"

Kaji nodded, gesturing for the group to enter the compound. "Warrant Officer Kaji now. Welcome to Lilin Outpost Naraka, Shinji."

Shinji couldn't think of anything more to say as he lead them down an unfeeling concrete corridor, Rei walking dispassionately at his side, and Asuka strolling confidently ahead at Kaji's side like she owned the place.

Asuka crossed her arms. "Heh. Still running the Hellhole, I see."

Kaji shrugged. "It may have seen better days, but it's got its perks. Speaking of perkiness, how's Katsuragi?"

"Still pissed at you," Asuka smirked. "Luckily she's got bigger fish to fry, else you'd be proper fucked. And not in the way you like it."

Kaji held out his arms. "Thank goodness for small favors."

To Shinji, the moment was absolutely surreal. Having spent the last several days of living through a veritable nightmare, to see Asuka and Kaji casually strolling along and chatting like they did back in the old days just seemed…out of place. Artificial. Like they were both just acting their parts, when they both knew just what lay outside those walls.

It was disturbing.

They reached what appeared to be long debriefing room, with seats lining the walls and a long rectangular table its the center, and a glimmer of natural light peaking in from windows lining the tops of one of the longer walls, and Kaji gestured for them all to sit. Shinji and Rei both accepted and sat one seat apart from one another, but Asuka remained standing.

"I'm surprised you had patrols running that close to the L-Barrier," she said matter-of-factly. "With all the activity around NERV, I was sure it would be too big a security risk. I thought we'd have to walk at least another day to get here."

"The Wunder issued an alert shortly after the events from yesterday," Kaji nodded, leaning against the table in the middle of the room. "The Hellhole is stationed here for just these sorts of operations, so we've been patrolling as close as we can to the border in the off chance you decided to come our way. With all the commotion yesterday, everyone here was prepared for all-out war if it came to it."

He threw Shinji a knowing wink.

"Glad to see we could avoid another Impact."

Shinji was still staring in disbelief, opening and closing his mouth as if to say something, but couldn't.

"Surprised to see me?" Kaji offered, giving the boy a sly smile. "Personally, I'm even more surprised to see _you_, all things considered."

Shinji stammered again, and Asuka suppressed a derisive chuckle.

"You're at Lilin Outpost Naraka, Shinji," Kaji said, congenially, spreading his arms wide. "Population: six hundred and fifty-seven. The boys like to call it "The Hellhole." Kinda fitting, depending on how well you know your Buddhist philosophy. Anyway, I've been stationed here as acting commander for…well, years, really."

He offered a helpless smile.

"Leadership has been rather hard to come by these days. We're the closest humanity can get to ground zero, but we're just one of the many outposts WILLE has scattered throughout the globe."

Shinji blinked rapidly. "WILLE…"

Kaji nodded, his expression growing somber. "Katsuragi would have me believe that you're responsible for the sorry state of the world we're all in here. Now, I'm not here to say one way or the other. What I _am_ here for is to keep these six hundred and fifty-seven souls alive."

Kaji gave Shinji the most serious look he had ever seen him make.

"Now protocol dictates I clap you in irons, Shinji," he said. "But that strikes me as a little harsh, given all you've been through, so I'll let is slide for old times' sake. But let me just make one thing perfectly clear to you: Everyone here is a trained soldier. Most Lilin are these days. They don't all start out that way, but they all become that way, one way or another. They have to, in order to survive this long. Those who can't adapt are usually the first ones to die. And only the craziest of them get dispatched to the Hellhole. And aside from a few of Katsuragi's liaisons, everyone stationed here answers directly to me. I give them one word, and they will _not_ hesitate to use lethal force. So you give me any reason to think that you're a danger to the six hundred and fifty-seven men and women stationed at Lilin Outpost Naraka, Shinji, and I will _not_ hesitate to put an end to you myself, Katsuragi be damned. Do we have an understanding between us?"

Shinji's eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat. He nodded once, unable to utter a single peep.

Asuka blew a damp lock of hair out of her face, still evidently miffed at having to be put through decontamination. "Colonel's going to eat you alive if you execute one of her prisoners without her permission."

Kaji shrugged nonchalantly. "Add it to the laundry list of things Katsuragi already hates my guts for. Besides, Shinji's not dumb enough to start causing problems here, right Shinji?"

Asuka snorted at the boy's silence. "You'd be surprised."

Kaji sighed. "All the shit we've been through, Asuka…I wonder if there are any surprises left in the world anymore…"

His eyes fell on the blue haired girl in the black plug suit.

"And what about you?"

Asuka answered for her. "Do what you want with that one. It's an old Ayanami Type. I will say that it hasn't given us any trouble since the battle yesterday, but you can't be too careful. It _was_ created by NERV after all."

Kaji winced. "'It?' That's a little harsh Asuka, don't you think?"

Asuka snorted. "It's not like it's a real person, so why should I refer to it as one? Besides, thinking of it as an 'it' will make it easier to kill whenever the time comes."

Kaji seemed surprised at this. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

Asuka shrugged.

Kaji sighed. "And you used to be such a sweet little girl."

Asuka's expression soured. "Not sweet enough for your tastes, it seemed. Do you _still_ not like what you see after all this time?"

Kaji held up his hands. "Easy. I didn't mean it like that, Asuka. I just meant that…well, time changes things, it seems. And not always for the better."

Asuka's good eye disappeared behind her bangs.

"You think I like things _any_ better like this?" she growled, before pointing an accusing finger at Shinji. "_He's_ the one who screwed everything up!"

Shinji withered. Rei persisted in being aloof.

Kaji's face remained sternly resolute. "You're not alone, Asuka. We've all become things we didn't want to become because of this war."

He offered Shinji a sympathetic look.

"And when times are as tough as this, when all the problems of the world just seem so disproportionally big for us to handle, it's real easy to put all the blame onto a single person. It makes it easier for us to compartmentalize the enormity of just how fucked up everything is when we can say that it's all someone else's fault."

His eyes returned to Asuka, who still seethed.

"But the truth is always more complicated than that," Kaji said. "We can't always reduce reality to bite-sized chunks just because we can't digest the whole thing. Not when doing so skews the whole picture."

"Don't you think he holds most of the blame for this?" Asuka asked, almost in disbelief.

"I think we all played some part in what happened, Asuka," Kaji admonished. "And I don't think that Shinji wanted this new reality any more than you did."

Shinji wasn't sure why, but for some reason, Kaji reminded him of his father in that moment. Maybe it was the beard. Or the glasses. Or the lines on his face. He was no longer a young, virile playboy, even if still tried to act like it.

He was right. This war _had_ changed them all. And not all of it for the better.

"Fine," Asuka harrumphed, turning to head for the exit. "Where's this base's mess hall? I need a decent meal. And an actual shower. And some clean clothes. In that order."

"Down the hall to your left, just follow the signs," Kaji hollered after her, as she was already halfway out the door.

The door slammed with a loud bang. It was an actual door with hinges and everything, Shinji noticed. Everything at this based seemed fairly low-tech. He wondered idly if Asuka would find the mess hall suitable to her needs. If not, she would most likely find some way to blame him for it yet again, he cringed.

"You two should also probably get something to eat," Kaji advised, breaking the silence Asuka had left. "Trail rations can't have been very satisfying out there."

"Kaji…" Shinji muttered, still in something that looked like shock. "I…I'm sorry…"

Kaji sighed in pity. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, Shinji."

Shinji shook his head. "I…you told me to keep Misato safe…and I failed."

Kaji crossed his arms, exhaling as he did, eyes focused on the floor.

Shinji swallowed hard. "…I'm sorry."

Kaji took another deep breath. It had been fourteen years since it happened, but the shock of those first few days was still etched into his memory, the terror on Katsuragi's face even more so. It hadn't been easy living in the world after Second Impact, but the world after Third Impact was a perpetual war-zone, with angelic sentries and soulless dummy plug drone patrols out in droves, killing off the last vestiges of humanity with ruthless single-mindedness.

Katsuragi had never been the same after that day. The nightmares from her childhood had all been brought to life, and all seemingly by one, desperate boy. Kaji could make an effort to guess what had been going on her head during those first years, but he would be the first to admit that he would have been off. For a while, she had taken some modicum of comfort in his arms during that time. But the years of intermittent fighting, fleeing and hiding in the dirt had ultimately destroyed whatever the two of them had left.

He had to convince himself to follow his own advice – it would have been so easy to lay all that hurt, all that fear, all that turmoil at Shinji's feet. But what then? What could a fourteen-year-old boy with practically no experience do with that? He couldn't have made anything better all by himself, even if he wanted to. He wouldn't have even known where to begin! And that was assuming he wouldn't just crack under the pressure and decide to end it all. God knows, Kaji had thought about it more than once these past few years.

But one thought kept him going.

Kaji closed his eyes.

"Katsuragi's a survivor," he said calmly. "Always has been. Hell, it was probably that very instinct that made her leave me behind."

He opened his eyes and gave Shinji a reassuring look.

"You did all you could, kid," he nodded. "But you're here now. And now we need you to do a little more. Think you're up for it?"

Shinji shuddered, but nodded. "I'll…try."

Kaji frowned. "You've been trying all your life, Shinji. Has there ever been a time where you actually felt like you were sure of yourself?"

Shinji shook his head, closing his eyes. "Once."

Kaji crossed his arms. "And when was that?"

Shinji glanced in Rei's direction. "The day I set off Third Impact."

That's when the klaxons sounded all across the base.

* * *

"Code 4C!" came the shouts from the small operations center of Outpost Naraka. "Nemesis Series inbound!"

The compound, which before had seemed sparsely populated, was now teeming with activity, as soldiers, officers and gunnery-men hurried up and down the corridors.

"Battle stations!" Kaji blared, dashing into the operations center. "What's our status?"

"Sir!" one of the junior officers saluted. "AT Generators running at optimal capacity! Shields are up! All weapons systems are green!"

"Alright," Kaji nodded. "Scramble the defense turrets! And get some eyes out there! I want to know just what we're dealing with!"

"Sir!" one of the communication engineers turned around in their seat. "Multiple targets incoming! At least eight contacts, possibly more!"

Kaji gritted his teeth. Outpost Naraka had never had to deal with more than one or two of these sentries at a time. Its AT Barriers were theoretically capable of fending off that many, but each additional AT Field it had to repel drained the base's generators of more power, and they weren't fortunate enough to come equipped with an N2 generator like the Wunder. They had to rely on conventional nuclear power, which had arguably been enough to keep the outpost running all these years.

But never under an assault such as they were about to be hit with.

"That's what we get for flying that close to the L-Barrier…" Kaji muttered grimly to himself.

The central command console at the center of the room lit up with a holographic map of the surrounding area. Their compound was indicated in green at the center, and the incoming targets slowly approached from three sides – four from the direction of Tokyo-3, and two each flanking from either side.

There were some twelve soldiers and engineers stationed in the operations center, each of them staring at their respective view-screens. Each of them had their own indicators of just what they were facing, and all of them were sweating.

"They look nervous."

Kaji twisted and saw Asuka standing just behind him, looking around their ops center with an appraising eye. He hadn't seen her come in. He wondered idly where Shinji and Rei had gone. He had left two guards with instructions to keep tabs on them, but otherwise the two of them could move about most of the facility unencumbered.

Asuka, however, technically outranked him, which meant that she had free reign of the entire facility.

"Alright, ladies and gents!" Kaji said enthusiastically, after giving Asuka a quick smirk. "All you roughnecks who wanted to kick some angelic ass yesterday? Well, now's your chance! Time to earn your stripes, fellas! Deploy all automated defenses! I want all our guns pointed at the main attack force, with all our armored units covering our flanks! Retract all subsidiary posts, and put priority on defending the main compound!"

The room sounded with one collective "Aye-aye!"

"Sir!" came the communications officer. "Main force is within firing range! We've got a lock!"

"Alright!" Kaji said, sweeping his arm forward. "All batteries, fire at will!"

The very foundation shook as eighteen hundred pounds of heavy artillery let loose, impacting the collective AT Field of the four advancing Nemeses, their glowing red bodies and flailing black tendrils whipping about in the wind.

"You're not going to last long throwing all your weight into a first strike," Asuka muttered, off-handedly.

"The best defense is a good offense," Kaji insisted. "Besides, a battle of attrition is a death sentence with these odds. Our best bet is to try to take out as many as we can before they can hit the main base."

Asuka harrumphed good-naturedly. "In that case, point me in the direction of your armor bay. I'm mounting up."

Kaji blinked at her in surprise. "We don't have any Eva units, Asuka."

Asuka snorted. "So? This facility is outfitted with JA Heavy Armor, isn't it?"

Kaji gave her a worried look. "Yeah, but those are automated units."

"They have a manual controls, don't they?"

"But only from inside!" Kaji insisted. "We're sending them all out unmanned because the idea is to use them as front-linemen to absorb the brunt of the attack! Cannon fodder to diminish our casualties! And they're not nearly as dexterous as an Eva! You'd be a sitting duck out there in one of those things, Asuka!"

Asuka gave her hair a toss and turned to go down the hall.

"Never underestimate what a good pilot can do," she said, giving him a wink. "Especially if that pilot is a child of Eva."

* * *

While all the commotion was going on, Shinji and Rei remained in the briefing room where they had first been brought. Rei had probably not moved a single muscle from the moment she sat down, though Shinji had been fidgeting nervously ever since Kaji had left, and it had only gotten worse once the rumbling began to shake the entire base.

He was vaguely aware of the sound of comm chatter being broadcast across the loudspeakers installed in each room, but it was only when he heard the name "Asuka" that he actually pricked his ears up.

"Damn it, Kaji, get your drones to give me some god damn cover!" her shrill voice shouted in a familiar sounding battle frenzy.

"I'm working on it, hold on!" Kaji's voice sounded back.

Without even thinking, he got to his feet and went to the door, finding the two guards posted outside.

"Ummm…excuse me…" he mumbled, not sure where to start. He had known the two men were out there, but he hadn't done a very good job of preparing his request in his mind. "Is there…any way we can…see what's going on outside?"

The two guards exchanged a look, before the one on the right, an older man who with gray hair and a moustache, spoke up.

"There's a digital display screen in that room you're in," he offered, gesturing with his free hand to the monitor behind Shinji. "On the wall, in the back. If you turn it on, you should receive the feed that's going around to the whole base. It's not going to give you a lot of technical details, but it should give you some idea of what's happening out there."

Shinji blinked. He hadn't been expecting anyone to actually help him.

"Th-thanks…" he nodded, closing the door.

He was aware of Rei's eyes following him as he hurried over the television screen and switched it on.

Immediately, he was inundated with scenes of carnage. The screen was divided into four separate partitions – a frontal view, a view from the east and western border, and a computer rendering of a top-town view of the compound and surrounding area, with red blips indicating hostiles and blues indicating friendlies. The hostiles numbered only eight, but the number of friendlies on the screen was diminishing by the second!

Much like the battle in the Wunder, the sentries were obscured by pillars of red light which meshed together to form a large cocoon of AT energy around each of the three groups, which bombarded the barrier around the compound on three sides. All around, the twisted bodies of Eva-sized JA Heavy Armor units lay mangled and useless, as a near constant stream of artillery fire poured into the four main sentries. Overall, it appeared that the Nemesis series hadn't suffered a single casualty.

And on the screen displaying the western front, one JA Heavy Armor stood out from the others. One for the red stripe on its arm. And two, for how, despite having lost an arm, it was still managing to put up a fight.

"Main force still advancing!" a voice cried over the speakers.

"AT Barriers down to forty-two percent!" another voice shouted.

"Armor force suffering heavy casualties!" cried a third. "They're not lasting long enough to even act as a deterrent!"

"Kaji!" Asuka shouted through the intercom. "Can you transmit the JA self destruct sequence codes to me? I'm going to try something."

There was a pause in the transmission while the battle still raged on screen.

"You better not be planning what it sounds like you're planning, Asuka," Kaji's voice sounded in a reprimanding tone.

"Relax," Asuka said, not sounding worried at all. "I'll have your western flank clear of angelic dip-shits in a matter of minutes. By the way, these units have boosters packs, right?"

Shinji was not aware that he had his hands pressed against the wall under the screen, his knuckles growing whiter by the moment, his eyes locked on the events taking place. He was also not aware that Rei had moved to his side in the span of the events he had witnessed on screen.

"You wish to aid her," she said simply, by way of observation.

Shinji flinched, suddenly noticing that she was there.

"Wha…?" he stuttered. "Umm…well…"

Suddenly, a faint warning chime began sounding over the speaker, as if it was picking up a louder alarm from somewhere else.

"Self-destruct sequence initiated," an equally faint automated voice sounded.

Shinji's head snapped back to the screen just in time to see the view screen covering the western wall cut to static, and the one screen displaying the CG rendering of the compound showed a dozen bright yellow circles expanding outward along the western edge, with both the friendly and hostile blips alike flickering off in the process.

"Asuka!" Shinji shouted, pressing his hands to the screen as if to reach in and pull her out of the blast zone.

Then the shock-wave hit the facility, and the entire foundation shook like it was in the middle of an earthquake! Shinji had to grab one of the chairs to keep from falling over, the lights all flickered and anything that wasn't bolted down bounced and teetered from the impact equivalent to about a dozen N2 mines compounding upon one another as the JA Heavy Armors' nuclear engines went critical, buffeting the base with a force through its AT Barrier.

Over the loudspeakers, the confused voices coming from the ops center all garbled together as multiple officers and engineers spoke at once, but Shinji could barely hear them. All he could process was the idea that he had just lost Asuka again.

"What just happened?" Kaji's voice rose up over the cacophony of human noise. "Asuka, do you read me?"

Shinji's vision began to blur. Asuka had been at the center of that blast! Right in the middle of the battlefield! And then every mech in the vicinity had self destructed, and then everything west of Outpost Naraka had vaporized.

He couldn't breathe. His vision was narrowing slightly, and he felt his stomach beginning to heave. Tears blurred his vision as his body pitched forward, as if his arms lacked the strength to hold him up anymore.

Only two things registered in his head at that moment in time. That Asuka wouldn't have been out here if not for him. And that if she didn't make it, this meant that her death was on his hands.

"Ikari…" Rei said, still standing next to him.

He didn't respond. He could hardly think. The nightmare was coming back to haunt him. The terror and anguish that had driven him to attack his own father all those years ago was boiling up inside of him like a wellspring of misery and negativity that he could neither control or contend with. Asuka might have very well been dead. Hesitation no longer registered in his mind at that moment.

And though he could not see it, his eyes had inexplicably begun glowing a deep, angry red.

* * *

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 4

* * *

The door to the briefing room flew open.

"_Asuka_!" Shinji screamed, making a mad dash through the door.

The scream, however, was suddenly muffled by a burly arm around his neck, as one of the guard's arms grabbed him mid-dash.

"Hey!" the younger of the two soldiers said as he lifted Shinji bodily off the ground, holding him in place. "Settle down, kid!"

"Rrrnng!" Shinji grunted in pain, eyes raging a brilliant crimson. "Let _go_ of me!"

"We're in the middle of an attack, son," the older looking soldier said, grabbing one of Shinji's flying fists. "There's nothing you can do right now."

"Let me_ go_!" Shinji demanded, screaming and kicking. "Let _go_! Asuka! _Asuka_!"

Behind him, Rei watched dispassionately, though her attention was fixated on the spectacle Shinji provided. Either one of these soldiers alone would have been enough to subdue someone with Shinji's build and training, and he had attempted to charge right through _both_ of them.

As the soldier's grip around his neck tightened, Shinji's eyes began to lid, and he slowly felt the energy leave him. Time seemed to dilate as the world spun around him. He was faintly aware of collapsing to his knees, of Rei standing behind him, looking down at his pitiful form, not knowing what to do; of the two guards picking his limp form off the ground, talking in subdued voices. The noise over the loudspeakers blurred into a cacophony of meaningless sound, and an eternity went by. All he could think about was Asuka, and how he had failed her.

Again.

An indeterminable amount of time later, however, something finally registered in his ears.

"Sir, we've got incoming!" a voice said over the speakers.

"What is it?" a voice that sounded like Kaji's asked, despairing. "More Nemeses?"

"No Sir, it's…friendly…" the voice replied, sounding confused, before a sudden wave of elation took over. "Sir, it's…it's the Wunder!"

Shinji blinked, finding himself back inside the briefing room, crumpled on the floor.

Wunder. He knew that name.

He got to his feet and stumbled over to the view screen, using the table in the middle for support, and on the CG render he saw a massive blue blip racing across the entire field, before coming to a standstill directly overhead, and on the other screens, Shinji could see the Nemesis series taking flak from one massive ship from overhead. The Wunder was large enough that it was visible at the top of _both_ active screens.

He could actually _see_ the Wunder's AT Field expanding to neutralize the Nemesis Series' energy cocoon, exposing the small, bright red entities that was the core of each individual sentry. Then, both the Wunder and Outpost Naraka opened fire on the exposed cores, and with a climactic explosion, the Nemeses erupted into plumes of bright red energy, skyrocketing into towering crosses of light.

Shinji still could not breathe.

"Asuka…" he whimpered, desperate for some kind of sign that she was all right. All he could think was that she might really be dead this time. And this time, it really was all his fault.

Then a voice broke out over the comm system.

"Hey!" came a new, but familiar voice. "Anyone down there missing a princess in a box?"

Shinji blinked. That had sounded just like that other pilot. Makinami, was it?

The static screen finally switched to a different camera, this one resolving on another JA Heavy Armor, this one with a pink stripe on its arm. Under said arm, charred and beaten up but intact, was what looked to be an escape capsule of sorts.

A capsule with a familiar red stripe on it.

"Very funny, Four-Eyes," Asuka's voice sounded. "Now get me out of this hunk of junk, would you?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Mari said, sounding lighthearted. "I think the 'twisted, burning metal' look kind of suits you."

"Let me out of here, damn it!" Asuka blared. "I mean it! It's _sweltering_ in here!"

"We could set you up in the deck of the ship, maybe arrange some flowers around you…" Mari giggled. "And the constant ruckus you make could scare away the riffraff for miles around!"

"Oh, when I get my hands on you…"

Shinji sunk to his knees.

She was alive.

Relief overtook him.

"Thank god…"

Rei continued to watch in silent fascination as the Third Child hung his head and wept in relief, and she stifled the urge to ask him why again he was crying.

* * *

Captain Katsuragi had her usual un-amused scowl on her face as she marched into the operations center of Outpost Naraka, flanked by two escorts in WILLE uniforms, each carrying a semi-automatic rifle tucked under one arm. Two of the base's own guards stood at attendance on either side of the room as she entered. Shinji and Rei were standing behind Kaji on the far side of the central terminal at the center of the room, Shinji having a particularly dejected look on his face.

Misato crossed her arms as she spotted Shinji and Rei.

"Why aren't your prisoners shackled, Warrant Officer?"

"Nice to see you too, Colonel," Kaji rolled his eyes. "Appreciate the save and all, but I was under the impression that the Wunder was still undergoing repairs."

"I asked you a question, soldier," Misato barked, all business.

"Relax," Kaji explained. "We've kept them both under guard. We have no Eva units here, or any Angelic equipment of any kind aside from our AT Generators, so the two of them are harmless on their own."

Misato's un-amused expression did not abate.

"Forgive me, but I won't be taking any such chances," she said, snapping her fingers.

At her signal, the two officers who had come in with Misato moved forward taking both Shinji and Rei by the arms and slapping military issue handcuffs around their wrists. Neither put up a struggle, though Shinji threw a wounded look in Misato's direction.

Kaji winced. "You know, you _could_ learn to lighten up on the boy just a little."

"And _you_ could learn to mind your tongue, Warrant Officer!" Misato growled in response. "Specimen BM-03 has already escaped my custody once; I'm not inclined to give him any more opportunities to do so."

Kaji sighed, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "You can't even call _him_ by his name anymore? You used to be such a people person, Katsuragi! What happened?"

"What _happened_?" Misato demanded, incredulously. "_Third Impact_ happened, in case you've forgotten!"

"I haven't forgotten," Kaji said seriously "But even though Shinji may have been at the heart of it all, and may have even been responsible for it, do you honestly believe he _wanted_ any of this to happen?"

"It doesn't matter _what_ he wanted," Misato said stubbornly as her two guards escorted both Shinji and Rei towards the door. "He did it. And he would have done it again if our pilots hadn't stopped him! And on top of that, Unit 01 has activated by itself not once, but twice now since we've recovered it! Both in reaction to the specimen you've been blithely allowing to meander the halls of your facility!"

Kaji let out an exasperated sigh. "He hasn't gone anywhere or done anything since arriving here!"

"Nevertheless, he's a threat as long as he's alive!" Misato declared, her guards and their prisoners standing at the ready behind her. "And if you can't get that through your head, Warrant Officer, than I can't help but question if you're truly fit for duty here."

In response to her words, two of Kaji's troops stationed behind him took two deliberate steps forward and clicked their heels together, standing even straighter than before, their guns held in a ready position.

Misato's eyes widened as she wheeled on the two men, her own guards tightening their grip on their own weapons in response.

"The hell?" Misato blurted. "Kaji, tell your men to stand down!"

Kaji smiled. That was the first time he'd heard her use his name in years. His command here had always been a tenuous one. Misato had wanted to put a higher ranking officer in command of the Hellhole for years now. But he had been a leader to the people here long before he had been appointed to the position. And his track record spoke for itself; Naraka had been a lost cause before he'd shown up. He had a feeling the only reason he hadn't been promoted was Misato's stubbornness.

"You heard her, guys," he nodded, smiling at the two men who had stepped forward.

The two officers saluted and stepped backwards, returning to their position behind Kaji.

Kaji's gaze remained on Misato.

"You don't need _me_ to tell you the value of a loyal crew, Kasturagi," he said slowly and evenly. "But even _you_ have to realize that a cooperative ally is a lot more useful than an unwilling prisoner. If you keep Shinji locked up like that, he's not going to have any reason to follow you, and may well keep resisting you until the day he dies. But if you can at least _try_ to forgive the boy, and give him the chance he needs to redeem himself…then maybe he'll prove himself yet. He has nothing but good intentions after all."

Misato stood there for a long moment, her eyes hidden behind the brim of her cap. It was not the first time Kaji had suggested something like that, but usually it had to do with the two of them making amends. But this was different. Now it was with regard to the very culprit behind Third Impact, the nightmare that had struck the world at its heart, from which humanity was still feeling the effects. And if Kaji meant to imply that she offer _leniency_ to the boy whose foolish, childish need for resolution nearly doomed humanity…

She gestured to her guards, and the two of them ushered her two prisoners out the door.

"Katsuragi…" Kaji called as she turned on her heels, offering her a sad smile. "Don't you think maybe it's time we put the past behind us? We don't seem to have much of a future left to spend dwelling on it."

She paused and turned her head to give him one last look.

"Stand amongst the ashes of a billion dead souls," she muttered bitterly. "And ask the ghosts if good intentions matter."

Kaji just stared back at her as she peered at him over her shoulder from under the brim of her cap. Anyone who had known Misato before had seen just what a flighty, bubbly sweetheart she could be. But anyone who _truly_ knew her also knew that this was just the mask she wore. No, the real Misato was a soldier through and through. But even though she was every inch a soldier, she had also known when to let the soldier out, and when to keep it shrouded in her shell of light-heartedness and cheer.

But now, that shell of optimism had long since evaporated. Now, only the soldier remained. There was no room in this world for the playful, carefree Misato that everyone saw on the surface. No longer was she the young, vibrant woman he once knew. This Katsuragi was cold, ruthless, and calculatingly cruel.

Time, it seemed, had changed things for her too.

"The silence is your answer," she breathed, before leaving the operations center, the doors closing behind her with a whirring hiss.

* * *

As the AAA Wunder took flight, Rei found herself alone in a containment cell, much like the one Shinji had been in during his brief stay aboard the Wunder. Also much like Shinji, she had been stripped of her plug suit and placed in a hospital gown, with a DSS choker was clamped around her neck, its lights slowly blinking, indicating armed status. WILLE was not taking its chances with Rei any more than they were with Shinji. Both of them had displayed hostile intent during the battle over Tokyo-3, both towards WILLE and in NERV's interests of triggering an Impact, which meant that the two of them were currently being treated as enemies of WILLE, and were imprisoned as such.

To Rei Ayanami, this was an odd situation. Whenever her creator had wanted her to remain somewhere, he had simply commander her to do so, and she had obeyed. She did not physically possess the autonomy it would have taken for her to do otherwise. No prison cell had been needed to imprison her. She had simply imprisoned herself within the confines of her own reality.

She studied the walls of this new prison with passive disinterest. It was more brightly lit than NERV had been, and there appeared to be more moving parts, and outside the walls she had seen more Lilin passing by than she had even known existed. But these external facets were the only discernible differences. Beneath this thin veil of humanity, the Wunder was little more than a mobilized version of NERV, the same skeleton in a different cloth. And while she did not smell like her creator, this Misato Katsuragi person clearly sounded like him. She would have simply had to give the word, and Rei would have had no choice but to obey.

But she hadn't. The Captain of the Wunder had not so much as spoken a word to Rei since she had arrived in this flying Angel carapace. And so, just as she had been when Unit 09 and 13 had done battle with the Wunder above NERV, she was directionless, adrift in the wind with no idea what to do but proceed with whatever task she had been left with, and to contend with the rest on her own.

This made the presence of the pilot of Unit 08 all the more confusing as she entered the room on the opposite side of the bars.

"Hey there, Miss Q," the bespectacled girl said smoothly. "Enjoying your new digs?"

Rei's response was simply to blink. She was not entirely certain what the pilot was asking, much less how to answer, even if she were so inclined.

Mari went on, apparently unaffected by Rei's lack of participation in the conversation.

"So, you're the reason Puppy-Boy ran off, huh?" Mari chuckled, crossing her arms over her head as she strode along the barred walls, eying the Ayanami Type with a casual eye. "I can sorta see why. I mean, I guess you're pretty cute, all things considered. No Helen of Troy, but I could see at least a few ships launched in your honor. But I suppose we both know that's not the _real_ reason he followed you."

Rei still did not deign to respond. Mari, in turn, continued on as though the lack of response was completely expected.

"You remind him of someone he used to know," she explained, turning on her heels to stroll the other way along the bars. "Someone he cared about enough to start Third Impact in order to protect. Pretty easy mistake to make, considering you're genetically identical to her. But you're not her."

Ayanami still said nothing.

"No matter how much you may wish to be," Mari added.

Rei blinked, an expression that could have easily been called "confusion" on her face.

Mari took that for what it was. "Oh, come on. Why else would you have followed him home after all that? With Gendo giving you orders your whole life, you probably never had to deal with a situation in which you had to decide something for yourself. So when you finally do, what do you choose? To follow the one boy who seemed genuinely attached to you, the one boy who seemed to know who you are."

Rei remained silent. But her eyes followed Mari, and seemed focused on what she was saying.

"But it was never _you_ he was after," Mari went on, sounding like she was gloating, but for the sincerity in her eyes. "It was the girl still trapped in Unit 01. The girl you were designed to replace."

She shrugged helplessly.

"Well…I doubt Puppy-Boy will be satisfied with a replacement," she sighed. "He wants the real thing. He wants the girl he saved from the 10th Angel, the girl he got to know growing up in Tokyo-3, not the puppet his father designed to take her place. Really, can you blame him?"

Mari turned to focus on Rei's blood red eyes.

Angel's eyes.

"But unfortunately, she's trapped forever inside the soul of an Eva," Mari lamented melodramatically. "And nothing short of a miracle can get her out of there. And that's assuming you could even _get_ to Unit 01; right now, it's in one of the most heavily guarded places on the ship."

A catlike smile appeared on Mari's face as her fingertips hovered over a single button on the control console on the wall.

"At least…in theory."

She pressed the button, and with a whoosh, the bars separating the two of them slid to the side, leaving the way out free and clear.

"You have no orders to follow anymore, Miss Q," Mari said as she turned to go. "No one's telling you what to do anymore. You've got to make up your own mind, decide for yourself what you want to do now. The choice is yours alone."

She turned to gaze into her deep crimson eyes once more.

God, those eyes made her look like the fiercest thing on the planet, Mari thought with a smile.

"And I'm afraid you don't exactly have all day to make up your mind," she smirked.

And with that, leaving Rei's door completely open, and the girl staring out at her freedom in abject uncertainty, Mari strolled out of the detention area and down the corridor, heading for the locker rooms.

* * *

The Wunder was still recovering from its encounter with Units 09 and 13. It was still equal to any angelic sentries it encountered, but as soon as the pilots had been lead inside, they had been able to see the signs of damaged components, open-circuitry that snapped and sparked every so often, fluids and gases leaking from creaking components, and emergency repair crew scrambling to attend to everything.

As Captain Shikinami hustled out of the locker room after a lengthy and much needed shower and changing into her officer's uniform, which was similar in design to the bridge crew of the Wunder, particularly that of the helmsman - a gray flight-suit with red trim on the hips and shoulders, a white flak jacket and a blue bandana tied around her left arm – she couldn't help but notice just how banged up everything looked.

"I'm surprised you guys were in any condition to come after us," she wrinkled her nose as a broken pipe hissed out a plume of steam next to her.

Mari, who had been waiting for her outside the changing room in a similar pink-tinted WILLE uniform of her own, gave her a half-smile.

"That's the scary part, actually," she commented as the two of them made their way to their scheduled briefing. "We weren't."

Asuka threw the other girl a questioning look. "Sure looked like the Wunder was mopping the floor with those Nemeses. How do you figure?"

Mari shrugged. Two engineers rushed past, carrying a sizable roll of what looked to be some type of insulation material.

"Weapon systems are mostly operational, but main engines and maneuverability are down something like forty percent," she said, stretching her shoulders. "Plus, we have no functioning Eva's. We were well out of dodge by the time we heard from Outpost Naraka, and we were planning to come and get you as soon as repairs were done. But it seemed Unit 01 had other plans."

Asuka's face darkened as she felt a chill run down her spine. Anything involving Unit 01, especially something that included the implication of the Eva possessing any degree of self-awareness, was bad news.

"Wait a minute…" Asuka breathed, her voice a low, serious tone. "Are you telling me Unit 01 went active?"

"Worse…" Mari replied, her usual sassy humor all but gone. "It commandeered the ship."

Asuka almost stopped in her tracks. "…Tell me you're fucking with me."

Mari sighed, shaking her head. "I'll let Doctor Akagi explain it; she'll do a better job than I can."

The two of them redoubled their pace as they made their way to the briefing room.

* * *

A/N: Misato's line inspired by Javik from Mass Effect 3.

Stay tuned.


	5. Chapter 5

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

Another slight wrinkle with Misato's rank. In the Navy, the commanding officer on a ship is _always_ refered to as Captain, regardless of their rank. So while Misato may be the _Colonel_ in command of WILLE, she is the _Captain_ in command of the AAA Wunder. This may go a long way towards explaining the conflicting information on the Eva Wiki. So, with a few exceptions among the pilots, the Wunder's crew will refer to her as Captain, while everyone else will refer to her as Colonel.

Thanks to Atilla1987 for pointing this out.

* * *

Chapter 5

* * *

Asuka grumbled as she saw Shinji behind a glass wall in the detention area. She had hoped that she'd seen the last of this brat for a while, but a pilot's duty was never done, it seemed.

"Colonel Katsuragi," Asuka nodded by way of greeting when she marched into the room. "What's this I hear about Unit 01 activating?"

The aforementioned woman had her arms crossed, leaning against the wall in a pensive position. Dr. Akagi was seated at her usual spot at the computer. And behind the glass wall, wearing a hospital gown and a new DSS choker, was Shinji.

"For the duration of the day, the Wunder was scheduled to undergo repairs at Lilin Outpost Kamchatka," Ritsuko answered for her Captain, pronouncing the Russian name with practiced ease. "At fourteen hundred and twenty-two hours, Evangelion Unit 01 went active for twenty-seven minutes and sixteen seconds. At this time, all flight controls were non-functional, and the Wunder itself was acting of its own accord. During this twenty-seven minute period, the ship accelerated to 3.4 times the speed of sound, well above the Wunder's documented top speed, leaving behind its naval escort, and nearly ripping the ship's chassis apart in the process. We didn't dare attempt a hard shut-down at that speed and altitude. If it wasn't for the ship's AT Barriers, the crew would not have survived the trip to even react to the situation we were dropped into."

Ritsuko paused for a moment to light a cigarette and take a puff.

"It's fortunate that we had thought to supply the ship with a JA Heavy Armor unit while the Eva's were out of commission, or we would not have been able to mount as effective a rescue as we had."

"They're a poor substitute, but they make good cannon fodder," Asuka commented.

Mari, who had filed in behind Asuka, smirked at that. "Which is why you decided to pilot one into a losing battle?"

"Hey, you did too!" Asuka shot back.

"Yeah, but I had the Wunder backing me up," Mari chuckled. "What did you have?"

"Focus!" Misato snapped, ending the prattle. "Even if it was temporary, the fact remains that we just lost control of our greatest asset in this war with absolutely no warning, and practically no explanation."

She turned a deadly gaze onto the Third Child, who had gone back to sulking like an infant.

"I mean to figure out how."

"We'd also like to ascertain how Shinji's DSS Choker was removed without terminating him," Ritsuko added, sipping from a coffee mug. "It had fail-safes installed preventing any such tampering. We think perhaps these two things may be related."

Asuka wrinkled her nose at the boy, whose head simply remained lowered.

"You think the brat something to do with it?"

"It's the most likely explanation," Ritsuko explained her reasoning. "Every instance of Unit 01 going berserk in the past has involved the Third Child. He was piloting Unit 01 when it went fully active during Third Impact, and he was still inside when it went partially active during our recovery operation in orbit. This is the only recorded instance of Unit 01 going active without the Third Child inside – or any pilot, for that matter. If we can study the process in which it happened—"

"If by 'study' you mean 'recreate,' then that's absolutely out of the question," Misato quipped. "Our primary concern is keeping Unit 01 and its pilot contained."

"If he can activate the Eva from _outside_, then it won't matter _where_ we keep him!" Ritsuko argued. "We can't keep something contained if we don't know how to contain it!"

"That's what the choker is for," Misato said simply.

Ritsuko pursed her lip, giving Misato a snide look. "That solution only works when someone actually pulls the trigger."

Misato glared back at the doctor, but didn't deign to comment.

Asuka and Mari just watched the exchange with some degree of trepidation. They both knew just how volatile their Captain could be when pushed.

"This thing…" a small voice broke the silence.

All eyes turned to see Shinji clenching his fists behind the glass.

"This _thing_ is what killed Kaworu…" Shinji's whole body shook, his head still lowered, eyes hidden behind his hair.

Misato raised an eyebrow at Asuka.

"Who?"

Asuka shrugged. "Another NERV pilot, I think. He's all the brat's been talking about since the fight."

Ritsuko looked suspicious. "Wait a minute. The choker targeted someone _other_ than the Third Child? That shouldn't be possible. Could NERV have removed it somehow?"

"That would have triggered the fail-safe," Misato thought out loud. "Besides, why would they put it on one of their own pilots then?"

Shinji seethed. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. To hear such callous dismissal of the life that had been taken as a result of punishment that had been so arbitrarily lobbed at him…

It made him absolutely sick.

"I don't believe you, Misato…" he gritted his teeth, tears building at his eyes. "Why are you doing this? Kaworu already died because of this thing, and now you're putting _another_ one on me?"

He finally raised his head to look at Misato with tear-soaked eyes.

"How could you do something so cruel?" he demanded. "The Misato that I remember would have _never_ done something like this!"

The Captain remained surprisingly calm under the circumstances. Or maybe it was simple aloofness that held her back. Whatever force kept Misato from responding, however, did not seem to apply to Asuka.

"Where the _hell_ do you get off talking like that, you brat!?" the redhead demanded, stepping right up to the glass. "You have _no_ idea what we've all had to put up with because of you!"

Shinji took a step back, shaking with a mixture of grief and outrage.

"Where do I get off?" he demanded, his whole body quaking, as if the question didn't even make sense to him. "Where do _I_ get off!?"

He stepped forward again, slamming the base of his fist against the glass.

"_You're_ the ones who told me to pilot in the _first_ place!"

The contempt on Asuka's face was palpable, but Shinji wasn't even looking at her – he was looking at Misato.

"I never _asked_ to be your pilot, Misato!" Shinji was shouting now. "The two of you and my father practically _forced_ me into it! Don't you remember!? I basically didn't have any other choice! So I did what I was told! I got into the Eva! I fought the Angels for you! I had sync tests every day, I trained and trained, all the while believing that piloting was the only thing _anyone_ would ever need me for!"

He hung his head once more, catching his breath in raspy gasps.

"Then…then the day came when someone genuinely _did_ need me to pilot for them. So I did the _only_ thing I knew how to do! The only thing _anyone_ had _ever_ been telling me to do!"

He looked up once again, eyes filled with rage.

"You want to know where _I_ get off being angry?" he demanded, desperately. "Well, where do _you_ get off treating me like _I'm_ the bad guy? Like I somehow _planned_ for this all to happen, when _all_ I ever did was do what _you_ told me to do!?"

He pounded his fist against the glass again, resting his forehead against it.

"I am what you and the rest of NERV have made me, Misato," he said, more quietly this time, his voice deadly serious. "If I've made mistakes, it was only because _you_ put me in a position to make them. I would have never even had to make the decisions that _lead_ to those mistakes if I hadn't been dragged into all this to begin with! Blame me all you want, but _you_ made the first mistake by making me a part of this mess in the first place!"

He reached up to grab the choker around his neck.

"But the Misato I know wouldn't use something like _this_ to make those mistakes go away!" he sobbed. "She wouldn't pin this all on some kid who was in no position to make the right decision in the first place!"

His body fell forward, his forehead pressing into the glass.

"What happened to the Misato I used to know?" he cried. "What happened to the Misato who told me she believed in me when I couldn't even believe in myself? What happened to the Misato who was more of a mother to me than anyone I've ever known!?"

Even Asuka looked a little shaken now. Though not from anything that Shinji had said directly…but from imagining how Misato might react to him bringing up such ancient history like that. Did the little twerp have any idea what he was saying? Who he was talking to? She half expected Misato trigger the collar right then and there, and spill his brains across the entire prison cell.

Instead, Misato simply turned away.

"Begin your research, Doctor," she said simply as she pressed the switch to open the door. "I've had enough of this."

With that, she disappeared out the door.

Ritsuko let go of a breath she had been holding ever since Shinji began speaking. Mari, for once, had no smart quip to deliver. Asuka, true to form, fixed Shinji with the deadliest glare he'd ever seen her make.

"You've got some kind of death wish, you miserable brat…" she breathed. "Are you really _this_ much of a fucking child? Are you seriously incapable of taking _any_ responsibility for your actions at all?"

Mari adjusted her glasses. "Call me crazy, but…I do believe that was the exact point he was trying to make."

Asuka ignored her.

"What about this is so hard for you to _get_, Shinji?" Asuka blared. "Your selfish desire to save your stupid little doll-girl was enough to make the face of reality do a fucking flip-flop! Life doesn't cater to your fanciful whims, you dolt! But _no_, you had to have your cake and eat it too, and to hell with the consequences! So now we're stuck cleaning up your mess, while all you have to do is sit there, feeling sorry for yourself!"

Shinji crossed his arms, pouting. "Excuse me for wanting to save someone…"

Asuka snorted, derisively.

"Here's what _I_ don't get…" she huffed, walking back and forth in front of the glass. "And this is just a personal quip of mine. But if you're going to throw a temper tantrum big enough to start Third Impact, then why the _hell_ would it be for that pale-faced mommy-clone of yours!?"

Shinji looked away. "I…It's not like that…"

"You know damn well it is!" Asuka blared. "Jeez, between your own mother coddling you from inside your Eva and your father's sick attempt at cloning her into that pathetic mockery of a human being, you're just a walking oedipal complex, aren't you!? You're _still_ freaking obsessed with her, even after all you've learned! She was all you could talk about before this Kaworu guy showed up! And now that he's gone, it's back to the Ayanami Type being all you care about anymore, is that it!?"

Ritsuko's attention was focused on her computer, and she did not appear to be paying attention, though undoubtedly she was.

Mari, however, actually snickered.

"Jealous much?"

Asuka wheeled on her and pointed a finger. "Don't you dare start, Four-Eyes!"

"It's not like that!" Shinji insisted, still fuming and shaken from his earlier outburst.

"Bullshit!" Asuka glowered. "Why did _she_ warrant a Third Impact, and not me, huh? I got fucking _devoured_ by Unit 01, in case you don't remember! By your own Eva, no less! _She_ wasn't even a real person! If you're going to start Third Impact over someone, why the hell was it for _her_!? What's so god damned special about _her_!?"

"It's not _like_ that, damn it!" Shinji shouted over her. "I owe her my life!"

Mari had not seemed to be taking any of this very seriously, but this little tidbit seemed to intrigue her.

"She saved my life, alright?" Shinji clarified. "In the fight with the 6th Angel, I…I would have died if she hadn't put herself in harm's way to protect me. She stepped in to save me without giving _any_ thought for keeping herself safe. I…I can't just overlook that, Asuka. I…I owe her a debt."

Asuka scowled, crossing her arms. "Great. So, the _one_ time you decide to act like a man, and you fuck up the entire planet. Just fucking great."

Shinji looked away. He didn't expect anyone to understand what he felt. Absolutely no one in his life had ever made any effort to even try.

Except for Kaworu.

"The situation is not so black and white, Asuka," Ritsuko spoke up from her seat by the computer, having been tacking away on it for the past few minutes. "Remember, Shinji _did_ attack NERV Headquarters after you were hurt during the 9th Angel attack."

"That's hardly a Third Impact, Vice Captain," Asuka huffed.

"No," Ritsuko admitted. "But you may want to take a look at these readings here."

Asuka grudgingly strode over to the terminal, and leaned over to peer at the screen.

"What am I looking at?" she muttered, distractedly.

On the screen were two graphs, both of which started low, but then took a dramatic leap, before plateauing towards the top of the graph.

"This one…" the doctor pointed to the first graph, "Shows the level of core activity from within Unit 01, just before it went out of control today. And this one…" she pointed to the second one. "Represents the nuclear fallout levels around Lilin Outpost Naraka."

Asuka nodded. "When I triggered the self-destruct sequence of all those JA Heavy Armors. What about it?"

Ritsuko took a puff of her cigarette. "Take a look at the times that each event occurred."

Asuka read the numbers at the bottom of each graph where the spikes took place.

They had been almost simultaneous.

"So…" Asuka muttered. "The Eva responded to the radiation?"

Ritsuko blew out a puff of smoke. "Unlikely, but possible. Shinji?"

The boy suddenly looked up.

"You weren't watching Asuka's battle with the Nemesis series by any chance, were you?"

He stared at her for a moment before nodding.

"When she triggered the self-destruct sequence on the JA Heavy Armor units…" she said, the wheels practically spinning in her head for all to see, "What did you think happened?"

Shinji swallowed hard. "I…I thought Asuka might have died."

Asuka snorted. "Oh, please! That little stunt? That was nothing!"

"I'm serious, Asuka!" Shinji blathered. "I really thought I was about to lose you!"

Asuka just snorted again. "I'm not yours to lose, you brat."

"Interesting…" Ritsuko muttered to herself. "So, the very moment Shinji feels as though the life of someone important to him is in danger, Unit 01 self-activates, takes over the Wunder, and flies at Mach 3 to the sight of Shinji's perceived peril."

Asuka's good eye slowly widened as Ritsuko's words registered in her mind. Slowly, ever so slowly, she swiveled her head to stare at the doctor in disbelief. She couldn't honestly be suggesting what it sounded like she was suggesting, could she?

"Food for thought," Ritsuko mused, as she unplugged a tablet from her computer and stood up from the fold out chair by the desk. "I think I'll be needing to run a few more tests on Unit 01 now."

She motioned to the two guards waiting outside the door.

"You can take the prisoner back to his cell now," she said simply.

"Wait!" Shinji spoke up, putting his hands on the glass. "Where's Ayanami? Where are you keeping her?"

Asuka's expression darkened.

Ritsuko just frowned, pausing in her step.

"In a separate cell," she said simply. "It's too dangerous to keep you two in the same room for the time being."

She turned to give Shinji a peculiar look.

"Shinji, I don't think you appreciate just what a danger you are to us," she said. "Not only have you nearly single-handedly ended the human race _twice_ now, but you also managed to unconsciously seize control of Unit 01, and in turn, this entire ship and everyone in it. If anything had gone wrong during the Wunder's impromptu supersonic flight across the Sea of Okhotsk, everyone aboard this ship, including Misato, would have been killed. If my theory is correct, then your Eva seems to respond to your very whim. Everything you do or even _feel_ has Earth-shattering consequences now! Whether you realize it or not, you're an _enormous_ threat to us. You have the power to end the world with a_ thought_! That's more power than any one person should have, least of all someone who doesn't know how to stop themselves. We _have_ to keep you locked up, Shinji. For _our_ protection. For the _world's_ protection."

Shinji lowered his eyes. "Then why am I always the _last_ one to find out about anything? If I'm such a danger, then tell me what to do – or at least, what _not_ to do. Sitting alone in a cell isn't accomplishing anything, but if what you say is true, and my feelings are part of the problem, then at least give me some kind of trivial task that makes me _feel_ like I'm not utterly useless!"

Ritsuko looked pensive. "That may actually be a good idea. But it's not my decision to make, unfortunately. And to be frank, we're in very uncharted waters with you, Shinji. We have to tread carefully. The very fate of humanity hangs on a thread. And with your kind of track record, Shinji, we do _not_ want the third time to be the charm."

Ritsuko strode out the door, leaving Shinji with the two pilots, the two guards filing in.

"Asuka…" Shinji muttered, looking back at her in the hope of making some kind of amends.

"Stow it," she shot back, her one good eye still hidden behind the shadow of her bangs.

After everything that had happened, he was still asking after the Ayanami Type.

Fucking pathetic.

"Nothing you have to say is worth my time anymore," she breathed.

She strode out the door, waving casually back at Mari as she left.

"I'll be in the mess."

* * *

Mari did not seem inclined to join her counterpart as she ate, but instead decided to follow along with Shinji as he was escorted back to his cell down the corridor. The guards, two squirrely looking men in WILLE uniforms, paid Mari no heed as she followed along. They reached the cell doors, and firmly pushed Shinji inside - not all that roughly, but not gently either. The cell doors slid closed, trapping him inside, and as the two of them strode back to the guard post, Mari remain leaning against the wall opposite Shinji's cell, and seemed to have no inclination of leaving.

"Told you you should have run away," she smiled.

That caught Shinji completely by surprise. "What?"

"During the 10th Angel fight, before you went all 'end-of-days' on us," she smirked. "You said that you weren't going to pilot Eva anymore, so I told you to run away. You should have done it."

Shinji frowned and looked away. He wasn't in the mood for any more lectures.

"Do you know _why_ you're able to pilot Eva?" Mari asked, stretching her arms over her head. "Has anyone ever told you the actual reason?"

Shinji shook his head. "Because of my mom, right?"

Mari shook her head. "Sort of. It's more complex than that."

She pranced over to him, pointing a finger at his forehead through the glass.

"An Eva responds to a very particular kind of human being," she said coyly. "A child, first and foremost. But not just _any_ child – a child whose ego has yet to develop past a certain point. A child whose need for both self-actualization and self-preservation have become so contorted that the two are indistinguishable. A child who makes the Eva respond in a maternal fashion."

Shinji just blinked in confusion. "What?"

Mari sighed. "Basically, the Eva _wants_ to protect you because, deep down, you feel that you _need_ protection. Because you're so afraid of the fight, the Eva intervenes on your behalf and fights for you. Your need for self-preservation, your fear, you primordial urge to flee…the Eva reacts to that in the most basic, primeval way possible."

She held up a finger on an outstretched arm.

"However…once that child decides to fight on his own…or what's more, decides to fight for someone _other_ than himself, then something happens. The most basic human desire – hell, the most basic drive in nature – is self-preservation. And when you charged headlong into battle to save little Miss Ayanami, you behaved in a way that ran completely _counter_ to _any_ of your basic animal instincts. In that moment, you had _no_ fear of death. You grew. You developed. You evolved into something more than just an animal fighting for its own survival. And so the Eva evolved with you."

She smirked, pounding her fist into the palm of her hand.

"The Eva never needed to do all that much just to keep you alive and safe. Hell, when an Eva goes berserk or into a mode change, it's just regressing into a simpleminded beast. When it comes to fighting angels, it's just a matter of elbow grease and bloody knuckles."

Mari crossed her arms, closing her eyes.

"But all of the sudden, you – her pilot – wanted something _more_. Suddenly, your desire extended to something much farther beyond your own safety. In point of fact, in that single moment, you didn't care _at all_ for your own safety. You wanted more than just self-preservation. You wanted self-actualization. You wanted companionship. You wanted love. You wanted to protect someone else, someone that you cared deeply for."

Mari smiled, opening one eye to stare at Shinji's bewildered face.

"The Eva needed to do something extraordinary to grant that wish. And so it did."

Shinji was trembling now. "And that…that's what caused the Eva to awaken?"

Mari shrugged. "Eh, that's my take on it, at least. The Doctor would explain it using a lot of bigger words. And each of our Evas are different. Anyway, that's why I told you to run away. Cause by _not_ running away, you actually put the world in even greater danger."

Shinji had to sit down. It had been an exhausting day, and that was _before_ nearly being blown sky high in an Angelic air raid.

"That's so fucking backwards…" he muttered, grimly. "The only way to pilot is…to not _want_ to pilot? So basically, I have to be a miserable, nervous wreck all the time in order to be an effective pilot at all?"

Mari shrugged again. "I didn't say it made sense."

Shinji fumed. Nothing about this had _ever_ made sense.

"So…just by trying to save Ayanami…" Shinji continued, trying to piece together the logic in his head, "I made Unit 01 cause Third Impact."

Mari nodded. "You've got it."

"I knew it…" Shinji let out a sigh. "I basically traded almost the entire human race for one girl. And in the end, I never even really saved her. Instead, her soul got trapped inside my Eva. And as a consolation prize, I got another incomplete copy that my dad made following me around."

Mari smirked. "Sucks, don't it? All that hard work, and no payoff? And to top it all off, it turns out she's practically your sister or something? Talk about a Luke Skywalker moment."

Shinji knew he should have gotten that reference, but he was just too weary to even care anymore.

"No wonder everyone hates me…" he shivered. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Mari shrugged. "I don't know, Puppy-Boy. But you may want to wait another fifteen seconds before you throw in the towel just yet."

Shinji blinked in confusion. "What? What happens in fifteen seconds?"

Mari's catlike smile was somewhat aggravating. "Oh, you'll see. Also, you may want to hold onto something."

Shinji had just a moment to ponder what she'd said, before the floor kicked beneath him as the Wunder suddenly went into a nosedive.

* * *

To be continued…


	6. Chapter 6

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 6

* * *

Rei could feel the presence of Unit 01 through the layers and layers of solid steel. Her path had been uninterrupted until now, doors that appeared as though they had been intended to prevent such breaches had been inexplicable unlocked. Rei had paid the matter no heed as she had proceeded towards her destination. She was not entirely sure what it was that drove her, but she knew that there was much and more that she didn't understand about the world, the people in it, and most of all, herself. And the only thing she could think to do in order to remedy that was to confront whatever it was that contained the essence of the person she used to be. Maybe then, she could finally understand herself. Maybe then, she could finally understand what it was that Shinji had believed her to be.

She had finally been forced to come to a halt, not a hundred feet from her target. But now she could _feel_ it, the swelling of power and consciousness. The presence, the force of will, the ego, the autonomy, the defiance of boundaries, the the latent potential energy, the intent, the desire to simply _do_… Everything that Rei was not - it all lay behind that final door.

It was _alive_, far more than she had ever felt. Whatever lay behind that door brimmed with primordial essence. It called to her; drew her to it. It was where she belonged.

"Who…am I?" she asked the force, for everything about it brimmed with sentience. "What was I supposed to be?"

The energy she felt stirred sightly, but in that stirring she could hear her own voice calling back to her. It was as if the soul within her had been split into many - that the one tiny fragment that existed within her body was not enough to keep her going for much longer, but the rest of her, in overwhelming richness, lay within the body of the machine she sought.

Once she joined with it, she might finally be whole.

Once she joined with it, she might finally be _human_.

Once she joined with it, she might finally understand…just what Shinji saw in her that she could not see in herself.

"I want to know…" she said simply. "I want to understand…"

The presence before her stirred with intent once again. She could feel it stretching out towards her, reaching for her, and she felt a fluttering in her heart the likes of which she had never known.

She closed her eyes.

"I want to see…the _true_ Rei Ayanami."

And the presence enveloped her completely.

* * *

The bridge crew were scrambling to regain control of the Wunder as alarm bells sounded throughout the entire ship, a loud roar sounding through the craft as the air buffeted the ship as she tumbled Earthward. Everyone who wasn't strapped into their seats was thrown to the floor, or braced against a wall. The entire hull shook as the mighty angelic warship plummeted to the Earth.

"Main power offline!" Koji Takao exclaimed in a state of controlled panic from his station on the bridge. "Power relays from Unit 01 have all shut down! Attempting to re-establish connection!"

"Systems unresponsive!" Hideki Tama shouted in a not-so-controlled panic, not far from his elder. "All my consoles are giving me errors and static!"

"We're losing altitude!" cried the pink-haired Midori Kitakami, bracing herself in her chair as the entire ship pitched and rolled. "Twenty thousand feet and dropping fast!"

At the helm, the implacable Sumire Nagara gripped the control yokes with whitening knuckles, attempting to stabilize their descent using the ship's broad wings to leverage the craft through the air as they fell through it, drawing their descent up to about a thirty-degree angle, but not nearly enough to level them.

"Engineering!" Captain Katsuragi shouted, clinging to her post with a fervent determination, her cap long since fallen off in the commotion. "Report!"

"Unit 01 has shut down completely, Captain!" Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba shouted back. "All attempts to restart it are failing!"

"That Eva's going to be the death of us!" Lieutenant Tama added with a shout of his own.

Misato struggled to grab hold of a console mounted radio affixed to the terminal with a spiral rubber cord.

"Ritsuko!" she shouted desperately, as the consoles all around her gave off error messages, and those screens that still functioned displayed the clouds rushing past them in a big hurry. "Tell me you've got something on this!"

There was no response. Outside, the clouds spiraled around them, as the Wunder descended into a tailspin, Lieutenant Commander Nagara struggling to keep their descent steady.

"Fifteen thousand feet!" Lieutenant Kitakami shouted, her post-in notes flying off her station and whirling around her.

"Hull pressure at critical levels!" Leiutenant Makoto Hyuga reported in alarm. "The ship will break apart at this rate!"

"Captain!" Ritsuko's voice sounded over the radio. "Captain, it's Specimen BM-00β! She's loose!"

Misato drew a blank through the groaning hull and straining bulkheads and shouting crew members. "What? Who?"

There was a pause as a gust of dense air hit them, sending the whole ship bucking sideways as out the main display, the sight of white clouds gave way to red sea, spinning and tossing as the ship rocked back and forth from Nagara's efforts to control their descent.

"Rei Q!" Ritsuko coughed, clearly not managing any better than Misato. "She's freed herself! And she's in the core area with Unit 01!"

"_What_!?" Misato demanded in absolute disbelief. "How!? Damnit, Ritsu, you have _got_ to get her out of there, now! Before she destroys _everything_!"

"I'm _trying_, Captain!" Ritsuko blared. "I've triggered every defense we have in place! Nothing's working!"

Misato gritted her teeth. She could barely process what she had heard. This was the nightmare scenario - this was something that absolutely couldn't be allowed to happen. This must have been why the Ayanami Type had surrendered so willingly, something in the back of her mind mused. Why had she been stupid enough to allow that _thing_ aboard the ship!? She had have simply killed it as soon as she had the chance.

"Ten thousand feet!" Kitakami screamed. "We're going to crash!"

"Keep it together, Midori!" Takao shouted. "We're not dead yet!"

"What's going on down there!?" Misato demanded. "What's that clone doing to Unit 01!?"

"I can't tell!" Ritsuko shouted back. "I have no visual, and all my monitoring equipment's going haywire!"

Nagara strained against the controls, gritting her teeth as she focused on the display of the ocean, rushing towards them.

"Come on, baby…" she muttered grimly, nearly bursting a blood vessel from concentration, tunnel vision overtaking her sense of sight. "Pull up…"

"Five thousand feet!" Kitakami screamed.

Then without any warning, the ship kicked up again, as the engines suddenly rebooted. Everyone was thrown forward, except for Lieutenant Commander Nagara, whose grip on the control yokes held true as she brought the ship out of its dive. Warning bells and lights still flashed as the g-forces rocked the ship's hull, the entire craft quaking and thundering before it shakily pulled up, forcing everyone not fortunate enough to be in seat to the floor. And as the Wunder finally halted its descent, its wingtips splashed the surface of deep red sea below with a mighty crash, its main body hovering above the water.

"Main power…" Lieutenant Takao coughed, climbing back into his chair, scanning his sensors for any information they would give him. "Main power back online, Captain…"

"Hull pressure stabilizing," Makoto reported, pressing a cloth to a cut on his forehead to stem the bleeding. "We're back in the green."

"Whew!" Tama breathed a sigh of relief as he also found his seat. "That was too close for comfort!"

Shigeru took a moment to peruse his instruments. "All sections of the ship reporting structural damage. Main AT Array is back online, and beginning with automated repair protocols."

"God!" Kitakami collapsed into her seat. "I thought we were finished!"

Nagara had to lever almost all of her strength to pry her own clenched fingers from the flight controls, falling back into her seat in exhaustion.

"We've regained control of the Wunder, Captain," she reported in panting breaths. "Shall I resume our course, or are we maintaining our position for repairs and diagnostics?"

Their position at the moment was less than a thousand feet above the surface of the Pacific ocean, its wingtips still occasionally dipping into the water as it hovered in midair, letting out the occasional sonorous howl.

Misato, who had been flung out of her seat, got to her feet and retrieved her hat.

"Set her down in the water, Lieutenant Commander," Misato grunted, straightening her uniform, cap and all. "Then shut down all engines completely. I don't trust this thing in the air again just yet."

She turned around to inspect the damage to the bridge. Much and more was in disarray, though the crew it seemed was uninjured. That was a silver lining at least. But she knew that the status of the bridge was only scratching the surface of the rest of the ship.

"Run full diagnostics and status checks," Misato said, turning for the door. "I want a complete damage report when I get back. Contact the main fleet; inform them of the situation, and ask them to send reinforcements. And tell Second Lieutenant Suzuhara to get me a casualty report as soon as she's able."

She marched out of the bridge and out the corridor.

"I'm checking in with the Doctor to make sure that _thing_ didn't just set off Fifth Impact."

* * *

Misato stared at the Wunder's core through six inches of plexiglass at the unmistakeable sight of Unit 01's eyes glowing a faint but definite yellow.

"Could you repeat that, please?" she said slowly, her eyes not moving from the ghastly visage of Unit 01, as its own eyes stared right back at her.

The office from which she and Ritsuko stood looked like an absolute mess. Tables and charts and mountains of paper, manuals, folders and other materials littered the floor. Most of the computer systems, however, still seemed fully functional, and Dr. Akagi, it seemed, had done little more than right a chair in which to sit.

"Specimen BM-00β, who for simplicity's sake I will refer to from now on as Rei Q, has merged with Unit 01's core," Ritsuko reported simply.

Misato's expression did not accurately convey the disbelief she felt at that moment.

"And how, exactly, did this happen?"

Ritsuko lit a cigarette and began her explanation.

"At sixteen hundred and twelve hours today, the primary defense protocol around the Wunder's core were remotely deactivated by unknown means. At the same time, Rei Q managed to escape from her confines by unknown means. Shortly thereafter, she arrived at the Wunder's core. Again, how she managed to make it from her cell to the core without security picking her up is unknown. At the time of her arrival, the AT Barriers around the core were brought down, likely an override signal from Unit 01's lingering IFF sensors that would have normally been nullified by the core's primary defense protocol."

Misato's arms were crossed, her eyes still fixated on the giant war machine before her.

"'Unknown means,'" Misato repeated. "Are you telling me we have a saboteur on board?"

"That's a possibility," Ritsuko admitted. "But I'm not overlooking the chance that Unit 01 or Rei Q somehow managed to tap into these systems remotely, using their AT fields, although I detected no activity."

Misato studied the metal casing surrounding the core. It looked nigh impenetrable. Even she would not have been able to guess at an effective means of entry.

"Wasn't there, I don't know…a simple _locked door_ or two between her and the Eva?" Misato asked, sounding flabbergasted.

Ritsuko nodded, exhaling a cloud of white smoke. "There are roughly a dozen, actually. The outer layer of entrances were remotely unlocked at the same time as Rei's prison cell doors, all of which are secured under Captain level clearance or below. Within a hundred feet or so of the Eva, however, Rei's AT Field was able to merge with that of Unit 01, and simply connected through the solid steel bulkhead. Rei was effectively drawn into the Eva through the very walls of the core shell housing, doing considerable damage to the ship in the process. It was at this time that the Wunder's main power system failed. Once the merging process was completed, however, the power connection with Wunder resumed, and our automatic emergency system restore processes brought the ship's main power back online."

Ritsuko took one more drag from her cigarette, before smashing it into an ashtray that she had retrieved from the floor.

"To answer the question that's currently occupying your thoughts, Captain," Ritsuko said in all seriousness, "_No_, there has been no indication of any activity from the Black Moon during this event. Nothing that has happened here has had any noticeable impact on the likelihood of…well, Impact."

Misato snorted at the joke. Some days, she really, really wished that she hadn't quit drinking.

"Why 'Q?'" she asked, offhandedly.

Ritsuko shuffled through some papers on her desk. "According to our intel, she's the 17th Ayanami Type created by NERV. Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, so…"

"So this 'Rei Q' is still in there?" Misato nodded at the Eva with her arms crossed.

Ritsuko nodded back. "As far as I can tell. There's definitely _something_ in there that wasn't there before, but I won't be able to determine anything until I can clean up this mess and get a probe in there."

Misato nodded. "Then better get started. Put a team together to help you get back to operational readiness, Doctor. In the meantime, we'll motor home using our backup N2 generator-"

"Actually," Ritsuko interrupted as she lit another cigarette, "Unfortunately, that was one of the components that was removed for maintenance during our repair procedures, along with our primary maneuvering thrusters. And when the Wunder suddenly took off for Outpost Naraka, well…"

Misato gritted her teeth in annoyance. "Then getting that NERV clone out of there is your top priority, Doctor. We're not powering on the Wunder's core until she's out. Got it?"

Ritsuko exhaled a puff of white smoke. "And if it turns out we _can't_ get her out?"

"Then we're swimming home, Ritsu," Misato said brusquely. "Unless you can find another S2 engine lying around, we're not going anywhere. Reinforcements are already on the way, but it would take the entire fleet to tow this thing."

Ritsuko nodded. "Understood."

"And get me a detailed report on just what went wrong with the core's defenses and allowed one of our highest security-risk prisoners to waltz right up to it," she added, turning to go. "If we have a saboteur on board…there'll be hell to pay."

* * *

Having nothing to hold onto during their near-fatal crash, Shinji had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor during the commotion. Mari, ever the trained soldier, had managed to grab onto something solid and stay on her feet, and had been whooping and hollering throughout the descent, with Shinji tumbling about and cringing in fear. When they had finally stopped, Shinji had gotten back to his feet with more than a few bruises and bumps on his head.

"What…what just happened?" he demanded, having collapsed onto the bunk to catch his breath.

"We just got the ride of our lives!" Mari giggled gleefully. "Also, the ship seems to have hiccuped."

Shinji slowly go to his feet, his legs still shaking from the experience.

"You mean you actually _enjoyed_ that?"

Mari shrugged. "What's the point of life if you can't enjoy it when you can?"

Shinji shook his head in disbelief. He could hardly understand Mari when he had first met her, and he was no closer to understanding her now. He laid back on the bunk, trying to calm his nerves, his heart rate slowly going down.

"Oh, don't tell me that was too much you, Puppy Boy," Mari winked languidly.

Shinji shuddered, closing his eyes.

"Just…give me a minute…" he panted, still out of breath.

But as his breathing slowed, his mind began to connect the dots. The pieces began to fall to place in his head as he remembered just what she had said before their sudden turbulence.

"So, let me get this straight…" he staggered to his feet, fixing her with an unbelieving stare. "You knew that was going to happen?"

Mari just gave him another catlike grin. "Nya."

Shinji frowned. "Did you have something to do with it then?"

Mari shrugged her shoulders. "In a manner of speaking."

Shinji shook his head in disbelief. "But…how? _Why_? Aren't you going to get in trouble with Misato?"

Mari shrugged again. "Probably. I wasn't expecting to be without power for _that_ long; she must have run into some resistance."

Shinji blinked in confusion. "What? Who?"

Before she could respond, the doors to the outside slid open, and a girl in red strode down the corridor towards them.

"Asuka?" Shinji stammered in surprise, not expecting to see her again so soon.

Mari turned to smile at redhead as she walked into the room, still wearing her WILLE uniform, her expression unreadable.

"Hey there, Princess," she smirked. "Does the Colonel want another word with our prisoner?"

Asuka said nothing. Instead, she slammed her fist against the door controls on the wall, sending the metal bars separating Shinji from freedom into the wall.

Shinji recoiled, completely taken off guard. "What the…?"

Mari just blinked in confusion. "Hmm?"

Asuka turned her head to fix the other girl with a look of fury, before whirling on her, driving the heel of her hand into Mari's stomach, sending her lurching backwards with a grunt of pain.

"Oof!" she stammered, staggering backwards into Shinji.

"Whoa!" Shinji grunted, as he promptly fell over, with Mari falling squarely on top of him, the two of them piled in a heap.

Asuka wrinkled her nose and resealed the door, trapping them both inside. She then rose a handheld radio to her lips.

"Colonel," she said into the mic, thumbing the switch. "I need you in the brig as soon as possible. There's something you need to see."

Mari sat up, sitting on Shinji who was still reeling from the fall, as she offered Asuka a weak smile as she scratched her head.

"Is this about that time I put ex-lax in your coffee?"

"Umm…Miss Makinami?" Shinji's tiny voice stuttered from below her as he propped himself up onto his elbows, face red, to see her practically straddling him, reserve cowgirl style.

Mari turned back to give him a coy wink, before rolling off of him, standing to her feet and offering a hand to help him up.

Asuka did not look amused.

"Now, here's something funny…" Asuka said in a low voice. "As soon as the Wunder recovered from its sudden death-dive, I started hearing mutterings from the crew of there being a saboteur on board. Normally, I wouldn't pay these rumors any mind, but then I remembered just who we have on board right now. So I decided to review the security footage for the brig. Guess what I found when I rewound the footage from outside the Ayanami Type's cell?"

After helping Shinji to his feet, Mari's only response was another smirk. "Heh…such a ruthless lack of hesitation. Even _I_ wouldn't have thought to act so quickly."

Asuka gritted her teeth, stepping up to the bars.

"Why, Mari!?" Asuka demanded, using the girl's name for the first time in years that she could recall. "Why would you do this? We've been fighting together for fourteen years now!"

"Yeah," Mari snorted sarcastically. "Fourteen years of name-calling and one-upmanship. Who'd get tired of that?"

"So what is this?" Asuka glared. "Are you defecting or something?"

Mari shook her head. "No. But I can't be the only one who's noticed just how rotten things have gotten around here. Miss Ayanami and the Puppy-Boy simply _don't_ deserve the treatment they've been getting."

Asuka looked like she wanted to say more, but at that moment, Captain Katsuragi stormed in, looking about as amused as Asuka was.

"Captain Shikinami," she said brusquely, eying the brig's new occupant. "I assume there's an explanation for all this?"

"There is, Colonel," Asuka said simply, going over to the computer by the wall, typing a few keys to call up the digital feed for the security cameras around the brig, and rewound the footage from Rei's prison cell, before playing it back for Misato to see.

As Misato examined the footage, her eyes narrowed in disgust. When there was no longer anything to see, she then turned to Mari, and her voice turned to ice.

"Who are you working for?"

Mari gazed back at her commander, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Currently?" she asked. "You."

"Don't bullshit me," Misato said in a deadly serious tone. "There's no way you pulled this off on your own. Who put you up to this? Was it Warrant Officer Kaji?"

Mari's eyebrow rose. So, Kaji was a suspect, she mused with interest.

"Kaji's hardly the _only_ one who's noticed what a cold-hearted bitch you've become," Mari snorted frankly. "And certainly not the one you should be worrying about. You may find, eventually, that Kaji is the only member of WILLE who _really_ has your back."

She leaned closer, eying the woman with a catlike glare.

"You may command WILLE, Colonel," she breathed huskily. "But you don't speak for everyone in it. That's just a fact."

Misato met her gaze with a cold, deadly glare of her own, but otherwise said nothing.

Asuka, who had remained still, with her arms crossed and finger impatiently tapping her arm, finally gave up on decorum and spoke out.

"I still want to know _why_!" she shouted angrily, throwing her hands in the air. "Why would you jeopardize me and everyone else on this ship with a stunt like _that_!?"

Mari smiled at the pilot. "That's simple. I did it for Miss Ayanami."

Asuka's eye widened in disbelief. "For the Ayanami Type!?"

Mari shook her head. "I'm not talking about Miss Q, the girl who tagged along with you and Puppy-Boy here after that fight. I'm talking about Rei Ayanami, the girl from fourteen years ago."

She turned and gave Shinji a smile that was…downright sincere, he thought. Probably the sincerest he'd seen since Kaworu.

"You see…" she said softly, for first time revealing a hint of sadness. "I too owe her a debt."

She returned her gaze to the Second Child and sighed.

"While you were busy getting your beauty sleep after that disaster with Unit 03, you will recall that _I_ was piloting Unit 02 against the 10th Angel. The Eva had been pushed to its absolute limit, and I had just managed to tear down its AT Field long enough for Miss Ayanami to strike with an N2 missile. And in that moment…"

Mari paused to remove her glasses, inspecting them idly.

"In that moment…that crazy girl threw me to a safe distance and took the brunt of the blast herself. It was barely enough to scratch the Angel, but it completely incapacitated Unit 00, leaving her as easy prey."

She returned her glasses to her face, and refocused her gaze to Asuka.

"Puppy-Boy and I watched her get _eaten_, Princess," she said simply. "We watched the Angel devour her Eva in a single bite. But it didn't just consume her body, you'll recall - it consumed her very _soul! A_nd then it metabolize her into its own flesh, and became something twisted. If it hadn't been for Rei Ayanami, it would have been _me_ who got eaten. She sacrificed herself to save me, Asuka."

She threw a playful glance at Shinji with a wink.

"And I very much doubt Puppy-Boy here would have been so desperate to rescue little old me."

He just blushed, not knowing how to respond to that.

Mari's expression sobered and she looked back at Asuka.

"So now she's trapped inside of Unit 01 because of what she did for me," Mari said simply, crossing her arms solemnly. "I can't let that stand."

Asuka crossed her arms, far from convinced. "So why help the NERV clone then? You said yourself she wasn't the same person."

Mari nodded, eyes still on Misato. "Right now, Dr. Akagi is probing Unit 01 for contamination, I imagine?"

Misato did not respond, but her silence was all the answer Mari needed.

"She'll probably try re-inserting the entry plug as a sort of siphon to catch whatever's inside," Mari postulated. "But what she brings out won't be Miss Q. It'll be someone else."

"How can you be so sure of that?" Asuka demanded. "Since when did you become an expert in theoretical bio-mechanics?"

Mari shrugged. "I'm not. But I know someone who is."

She gave Misato a knowing smile.

"Not all your subordinates are as loyal as you think, Colonel."

Misato simply gave her a cold, hard stare.

"As for the Puppy-Boy?" Mari went on, unperturbed. "Putting a choker on him that will kill him if he makes a single mistake? This boy was one of _us_, Colonel! A Child of Eva! How much longer until you feel you need to put a choker on the Princess here, for fear of her angelic contamination? Or me, just for this little demonstration? How much of your humanity are you planning to set aside for your revenge, Colonel? Is _this_ how WILLE treats its own? If it is, then count me out."

Her smile turned catlike once again.

"And trust me…I'm not the only one in WILLE who feels this way."

She let that hang.

Asuka turned her nose up at that. She did not like the implication she was making at all.

Evidently, neither did Misato.

"I don't have time for this," she said, turning to the guards, who had stationed themselves just inside the door at her entrance. "Leave her here for now. I want two guards at every cell area from now on. I've got a ship to repair, and we're sitting ducks out here with no power, no AT Field, and only a single JA Heavy Armor for defense."

She turned and strode towards the door, with Asuka following on her heels.

"That said, I want you on standby," she said to Asuka, all business. "You're our only functional pilot right now."

"As long as we get it painted red," Asuka stipulated.

"Sure," Misato snorted sarcastically. "I'll put that right at the top of my to-do list. Now get to it already."

"Yes ma'am," Asuka groaned.

The two guards followed them out the main door as it whooshed shut, and Shinji and Mari were left alone.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the two of them, before Mari let out a breath.

"Well…" she gave Shinji a reassuring smile. "I think that went fairly well."

Shinji wasn't entirely sure he would have agreed with her on that.

"Did you…" he muttered after another moment of silence, looking nervously at the girl. "Did you _mean_ all that?"

Mari returned his gaze. "What? About the Colonel being a cold-hearted bitch?"

Shinji shook his head. He did not like thinking of Misato that way. "About…about Ayanami."

Mari smiled and sat down on the bunk running along the back wall, crossing her arms as she smiled at him. "Every word."

Shinji did not know how to respond to that. So he leaned against the bars across from her, glancing around the cell that suddenly seemed a lot smaller now that there were two people occupying it. There was a second bunk above the one she was sitting on, but that still meant that they were technically sharing a room. It didn't help that all he had on was a thin, threadbare hospital gown. Or how fetchingly Mari's WILLE uniform clung to her body. Anyone being in such close proximity made him nervous, but in these particular circumstances, it was worse by far. And as she was proving again and again, Mari was an absolute wildcard, which made sharing a space with her exponentially more uncomfortable.

"Hnnnnnng…" Mari stretched her arms, sounding fatigued. "Ahh… I figured they'd nab me eventually, I just didn't expect it'd happen so quickly. That Princess, I swear. She was _so_ ready to take me down a peg, I bet she just couldn't _wait_ to bust my ass. Oh well…"

Shinji didn't really have a response to that, though Mari seemed determined to continue talking.

"So bored," she sighed, kicking her legs back and forth. "Nothing to do now but wait for Dr. Akagi to finish up her work."

She smiled up at Shinji.

"I suppose we could always fool around for a bit, but they'd probably move us to separate cells if we did that. And that would be even more boring."

Shinji's face went beet-red as he pressed ever further back into the bars. "_Wh-what_!?"

Mari snickered in amusement. Such an easy mark, she thought.

"Besides," she purred. "You're much more interested in the Princess, aren't you?"

Shinji blinked and stuttered in confusion, and by some miracle he remembered that 'Princess' was Mari's nickname for Asuka.

"Wha-?" he stammered, still red in the face. "N-no I'm not!"

"You sure?" Mari winked. "As soon as you thought her life was in danger, Unit 01 flew into action to save her!"

She wrapped her arms around herself, swinging back and forth, swooning in an exaggerated fashion.

"Ohhhhhhh," she sighed melodramatically. "If only _I_ had a knight in shining armor like that who would rush to _my_ side whenever I needed him! I'd be so much happier!"

Even Shinji could tell when he was being outright mocked.

"Stop teasing me, will you?" he pouted, looking away. "It's not like I can control when it happens. Unit 01's just…like that."

Mari giggled. "Well, of course you can't control it. A puppy isn't born knowing how to walk or run, y'know? It has to learn how."

She leaned her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward to peer across the cell at him.

"You'll learn to control it eventually," she said, more seriously. "You pretty much had it down when you fought the 10th Angel. Eventually, it'll come to you, and you'll learn how to fully mesh with your Eva at will. And when you do…"

The catlike grin that appeared on her face as she laughed made Shinji far more nervous than anything she'd said or done thus far.

"When you do…" she purred, "You'll be unstoppable."

* * *

To be continued…


	7. Chapter 7

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 7

* * *

Sakura Suzuhara stared in ill-concealed disdain at the two figures lying on the bunk beds behind the bars. In her hands were two trays stacked on top of one another, each laden with equal portions of nutrient paste, something that the entire crew of the Wunder had long since gotten used to eating. Thought she supposed it was a blessing that she had managed to survive long enough to be able to eat this crap for yet another day, considering the events these last few days. The question that truly irked her, however, was whether or not these two should get another chance to eat again, considering the trouble they'd each caused.

To Sakura, the name Shinji Ikari was like something out of a bedtime story. It was a name she had grown up hearing about, never fully understanding, but invariably carrying an immeasurable weight to it. Her own brother used to tell her stories about him, and having become a part of WILLE, his name had appeared as a footnote in just about every other mission briefing, report and memo she had come across. Yes, his name had carried the negative connotation of being the one responsible for the end of the world, but good or bad, such a name was enough to evoke awe in any junior officer.

Her ire did not come from his nearly destroying the world the first time. It came from nearly doing it a _second_ time, after she had pleaded with him not to get into an Eva again. Lo and behold, he had done just that, which left Sakura with little recourse but to assume the worst about him, that Captain Shikinami and Katsuragi had been right all along, that he was just a sad, helpless little boy who would do whatever anyone asked him to, including destroy the world, if he thought someone would praise him for it.

Makinami, on the other hand, was another story. As a pilot, she and Captain Shikinami carried about them a certain mystique, an air of confidence and notoriety that could only come from being an Eva pilot. It was the same swagger, the same cockiness Sakura had seen in fighter pilots back at base, but this was on a completely different level. Sakura could not help but envy the Eva pilots for their skill, their respect, their confidence, their strength, not to mention their good looks! Few members of WILLE would have volunteered to be an Eva pilot knowing what it entailed. But Sakura would have signed up in a heart-beat. Piloting Eva would have been a dream come true to her!

To Sakura, nothing in her life made her feel more powerless than growing up a child in Tokyo-3, living in constant fear of Angel attacks. Everyone had to live with that fear. If the Angels came to Tokyo-3, the world would be over, and that was it. And what made it so unbearable was the simple fact that there was literally nothing she or anyone else she knew could do about it. But not the Eva pilots! Eva pilots could actually _do_ something about the Angels that ravaged their city! To Sakura, being an Eva pilot meant having control over her own life and death. To Sakura, being an Eva pilot meant never having to fear that each day might be her last.

For Mari Makinami Illustrious, one of two people in the world that Sakura had admired most, to turn her back on WILLE and everything it stood for…

"Here's your breakfast," Sakura grunted, displeasure evident in her voice, as she shoved the trays under the bars a little more forcefully than she needed to.

The sudden clattering caused Shinji to wake with a start, having still been asleep.

"Wh-Wha-?" he sat bolt upright, looking around and nearly falling off his bed.

Mari, who had long since awoken, and had merely been lying there with her eyes closed for lack of anything else to do, sat up and helped herself to the provided nutrient paste.

"Wow!" she beamed, sounding both gracious and sarcastic at the same time. "Room service! Awesome! I thought you guys were going to let us starve to death."

Sakura's eyebrow twitched at the pilot's lack of any outward display of remorse for her actions, but she kept her comments to herself.

"Oh!" Shinji blinked the sleep out of his eyes, taking stock of what was going on. "Umm…good morning…Miss, uh…Suzuhara…"

Sakura kept her arms crossed. She had been expecting his usual passive decorum, but was still waiting for one of them to acknowledge what they had done.

"Don't you two have anything to say for yourselves?" the Second Lieutenant demanded, eyebrow still twitching as Shinji climbed down from the bunk to retrieve his meal tray.

Mari and Shinji exchanged a look, before Mari clasped her hands together.

"Oh, uhh…thank you for the meal?" she said, saying grace as more of a question than a statement.

Shinji, fearing reproach, followed suit by clasping his hands together in complete sincerity.

"Thank you for the meal!"

Sakura clenched her fists into two little balls.

"I can't believe you two!" she glared at them. "You're not even sorry about what you did!"

"Of course we're sorr-" Shinji started to say, when Mari held up a finger mid-bite.

"Don't apologize, Puppy-Boy," Mari commanded, fixing the other girl with a firm stare. "We're not about to apologize for staying true to our beliefs, Lieutenant. Can you say as much?"

Shinji was taken off guard. He had said something like that to Asuka only yesterday. He couldn't help but admire the other pilot - for that, and for allowing herself to be taken prisoner on Rei's behalf, never mind that he had no idea what her plan was for that.

Sakura just looked more irked.

"What beliefs?" she demanded, bluntly. "Forsaking the greater good so that you can feel better about yourselves in the short term?"

"Call it whatever you want," Mari replied. "But Puppy-Boy here has fought and bled in this war just as much as the Princess or I have. And so has Miss Ayanami. They deserve to be respected for that."

"They fought for NERV!" Sakura exclaimed in disbelief.

"So did we all, at one point or another," Mari said evenly, sighing inwardly. The clear black and white distinction in Sakura's worldview was staggering. "Besides, they had no other recourse. Miss Ayanami and Miss Q have known nothing else for all their short, deprived lives. And as for the Puppy-Boy here…"

She turned to give Shinji a sympathetic smile.

"If you had awoken from a fourteen-year slumber, Lieutenant, only to find the world in the shape it's in now, and that everyone you cared about was either dead or hates your guts, what would _you_ do, huh? Would you gladly stand beside the people who've spurned you?"

Shinji was completely lost for words. When had Mari suddenly decided to play devil's advocate? Whatever her reasoning, she had demonstrated herself thus far to be the only person in the world, besides Kaworu and maybe Kaji, to give his perspective any consideration whatsoever.

If he wasn't still feeling groggy from just waking up, he probably would have cried.

Mari returned her gaze to the other girl.

"The world isn't so cut and dry, Lieutenant. The Puppy-Boy makes for an easy target to place all your blame on when things get hairy. But the truth isn't as simple as all that. All he wanted was to be treated like a person. You can't blame someone for wanting a little human decency."

Now Shinji was worried that he was still asleep, because he was now hearing _Kaji's_ words coming out of her mouth. Maybe Misato's theory about her and Kaji being in league had been right after all. Whatever the reasoning behind it, he was grateful. Almost too grateful for words.

Sakura hung her head, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Why couldn't you have just listened to what I'd said, Shinji?" she asked, bitterly. "I told you not to pilot Eva, and you did it anyway. If you would just _listen_ to what the people around you have to say, you could_ easily_ figure out what's right from wrong eventually. It's not that hard!"

Shinji frowned.

"I _was_ listening, Miss Suzuhara," he said gravely. "To WILLE _and_ to my father. To Asuka, to Fuyutsuki, to Misato, to Kaworu, _and_ to you. Everyone was telling me something different. I had no idea who to trust."

Sakura returned his frown. "And you trusted _them_ more than you trusted _us_?"

"You all didn't exactly give me any more reason to trust you than NERV did," Shinji replied. "I…I _want_ to help you. I want to help_ all_ of you. But…I'm not feeling a lot of trust from you guys. And you haven't exactly gone out of your way to make feel welcome."

He tugged on his choker to illustrate his point.

Sakura sulked, looking away. "Well, you haven't exactly given us any reason to trust you either."

"Then tell me what I need to do to _earn_ it," Shinji said plainly. "You've all been living and breathing this world for the last fourteen years, but I had to see for myself just what the world had become before I could believe it! I had to _see_ just what NERV had become. What my father was trying to do, the truth about Ayanami and my mother and Unit 01…it's all made the decision much easier to make."

He clenched his fist and furrowed his brow.

"I want to fight alongside WILLE," he said, more forcefully. "I don't _care_ if you all hate me now; everyone that I care about who isn't already dead is with WILLE. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to prove myself. I may not be useful as a pilot anymore. Maybe I'm not even useful as a regular soldier. But if there is something I can do around here that could _help_ everyone, even a little, then I want to do it! Tell Misato _that_ for me!"

His expression suddenly softened, as if he suddenly realized what he'd said, and lowered his eyes again.

"…That is, if you would please…Miss Suzuhara."

The lieutenant pursed her lips.

"Sakura."

Shinji looked up, surprised to see an approving expression on the girl's face.

"Huh?"

"My name is Sakura," she replied with a wry smile. "You might as well use it."

Shinji blinked in confusion. "Uh…ok, um…Sakura…"

She inclined her head in a polite bow.

"And I'll be happy to take your message to the Captain," she said, good naturedly. "Thought I can't guarantee she'll pay it much heed. Anyway, please enjoy your breakfast, Shinji."

Shinji watched as Sakura left the brig area, the door whisking closed behind her. He was left wondering what exactly had just happened.

His thoughts were interrupted, however, when he heard a slow, pronounced clapping sound coming from Mari.

"Very good, Puppy-Boy," she smiled, slowly clapping her hands together, a catlike smile once again on her face.

Shinji's cheeks reddened as he looked away. "Oh, quit teasing me…"

"I mean it," she smiled. "You handled that very well."

Shinji just looked away. "Well, I…I mean…that is to say…"

He cleared his throat, returning his gaze to her face.

"Thanks," he said, pursing his lips. She could tell this was coming out with some difficulty. "Not just for saying so, but…for standing up for me. No one's…"

He swallowed hard, fighting back tears.

"No one's…ever done that for me before…"

Mari sighed, playfully. "Aww…does Puppy-Boy need a hug?"

Shinji closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm being serious here…"

Mari just giggled. "It's no wonder the Princess is so fixated on you. You're awfully cute, you know that?"

Shinji felt a vein throbbing in his forehead. "Come on, quit teasing me."

Mari's mockery did not abate. "And now it seems our dear Second Lieutenant Suzuhara may have a bit of a crush on you too! What a Casanova you are, Puppy-Boy!"

Shinji just sighed, leaning back to rest against the wall. It appeared that opting to work with WILLE was like to be more trouble than it was worth.

* * *

"_Tell Misato _that_ for me!"_

Ritsuko paused the video, giving her Captain an inquisitive look.

"He seems to be coming around to our way of thinking."

The two of them had been in Ritsuko's lab, reviewing the results of the Doctor's prognosis of Unit 01. The day before, the lab area had been an utter disaster zone, but now it looked utterly impeccable, thanks to the work of a dozen hard working lab technicians. The doctor had worked all through the night as the Wunder drifted aimlessly across the ocean, probing the depths of Unit 01's core, until she was convinced of a method to siphon the foreign contaminant from it. It involved inserting the unit's entry plug back into its socket, and activating the unit's core recycle process, just as Mari had predicted.

She had been in the midst of explaining all this to Misato, when the motion tracker alert in Shinji and Mari's cell had gone off, so she had queued up the security display footage for the two of them to review. After Second Lieutenant Suzuhara had left, Ritsuko had rewound the footage to play back some key bits, including this one little gem.

"So?" Misato said, unimpressed. "I said it before: he's a threat as long as he's alive. It doesn't matter _what_ he wants, Doctor."

Ritsuko furrowed her brow.

"With all due respect, Captain…" she said bluntly, "_Yes_, it _does_."

Misato fixed her with perplexed look.

Ritsuko massaged her forehead. "Look…if recent evidence is to be believed, then Shinji's very emotions have an effect on this Eva unit. And it doesn't even seem to matter whether he's _in_ the Eva or not, now! To me, that says, far from not mattering at all, Shinji's feelings matter more than anyone else's on this ship! It's not enough for us to just _imprison_ him, Captain…we need to sway him to our side! We need to convince him that we're the good guys, that what we're fighting for is what he should be fighting for! We need to make _our_ cause _his_ cause!"

"But how can we even trust him not to destroy us all?" Misato asked, sounding somewhat helpless. "Maybe we should just kill him now and get it over with…"

Ritsuko's frowned, shaking her head. "You don't believe that anymore than I do. Besides, you and I both know that Unit 01 would not react well to that. Not after what we've seen. If he even gets a hint that we're planning to execute him, there's no telling _what_ the Eva will do. Best case scenario, it never starts up again, and we'll be forced to scrap the Wunder. Worst case scenario…"

Ritsuko lit another cigarette. Already, her ashtray was piling up.

"I know what you fear most now is Shinji activating Unit 01 and causing Fifth Impact," she said in a quiet voice. "But do you want to know what _my _nightmare scenario is, Misato? Right now, my greatest fear is a Shinji Ikari who doesn't _care_ if the world ends. Or worse yet, a Shinji Ikari who _wants_ the world to end. If Shinji ever gets to a point where he's so angry, or frightened, or sad, or frustrated or miserable, or just plain depressed, such that he actually _wishes_ for this world to end…"

She fixed Misato with a grave look.

"Then there is no prison, no choker, no weapon, no tool designed by humanity that will stop Unit 01 from granting him that wish. Whatever your feelings on the subject, Captain, we _have_ to take his emotional state into consideration. We _have_ to appeal to him. We _have_ to earn his trust."

An indicator light flashed on Ritsuko's screen, and she glanced at the message, studying it carefully. A mixture of emotions appeared on her face at that moment - surprise, shock, confusion, trepidation, and finally enlightenment.

"And I think I may know just how to do it."

Misato watched her old friend throw a couple of switches, before hurrying out of the lab area, across the metal grating that served as a service platform, and into the large Core area, itself the size of an aircraft carrier, the head and shoulders of Unit 01 partially visible from one end.

"What is it?" Misato asked, following the doctor as she hurried along towards the exposed portion of Unit 01.

Ritsuko got to the control panel by the Eva unit, and entered a key command at the keyboard.

"The fruit of our labors," Ritsuko smiled, as Unit 01's head bent forward, the armor plating shifting out of place to expose the entry plug within. An enormous mechanical arm from the ceiling descended down to the Eva's back, it's claw clasping the tip of the entry plug on four sides, before turning in a slow, deliberate circle, unscrewing itself from the locked position, before drawing it all the way out, letting out a mechanical groan as it brought the entry plug down to floor level.

Ritsuko pressed another button on the control panel, and the hatch swung open, letting bright orange LCL flood out of the opening, splashing down through the grating of the floor, and seeping down to the bottom of the core, which acted as a catch basin to recycle such fluids.

As the LCL continued to drain from the entry plug, however, a pale, nude figure tumbled out, flopping unceremoniously to the floor.

As Misato's eyes widened in disbelief, Ritsuko produced a towel from beneath the control console, and strode over to the girl on the floor to drape the towel over her shivering body, doing a quick check of her vitals.

"Try to relax," she said quietly checking her pulse for abnormalities. "You've been through quite an ordeal."

The girl was quivering, her breath coming out in trembling breaths as her eyes flickered open, scanning her surroundings.

"Can you hear me?" Ritsuko probed further, shining a pen-light into the girl's eyes to check for dilation. "Can you understand what I'm saying?"

The girl blinked from the bright light, still looking around in confusion.

"Y…Yes…" she managed to whisper, her throat sounding dry and weak.

Ritsuko nodded, wrapping the towel more carefully around her body. "Good. Do you know who I am?"

The girl paused for a moment to consider, before nodding. "Dr. Akagi Ritsuko…"

She nodded again, taking her by the hand. "Very good. Can you stand?"

By way of response, the girl tremulously got to her feet, relying heavily on Ritsuko for support.

"Outstanding," Ritsuko smiled, aware that Misato was standing behind with what must have been a look of absolute incredulity. "Can you tell me your name?"

The girl wheezed, before swallowing, still apparently recovering from the shock of having been in a discorporate state for fourteen years.

"My name is…Ayanami Rei."

* * *

Shinji looked up as the door to the prison area slid open as Doctor Akaji emerged.

"You get your wish, Shinji," she said simply by way of greeting.

She then turned to peer out the door into the indiscernible darkness of the hallway.

"Come on in," she said in a surprisingly maternal tone.

Shinji was about to ask what she meant by 'his wish,' when his eyes fell upon Rei Ayanami, wearing the same hospital gown as he was, as she stepped through the door and into the cell area, and all other thoughts vanished from his mind.

"Ayanami…" he breathed in surprise, his eyes widening.

In that moment, it was as if everything else had stopped existing. As if he and Rei faced each other in an expanse of pure darkness. He was not even cognizant of Dr. Akagi explaining what had happened, or of Mari observing his response and making some coy remark.

All he saw was Rei.

The more he observed her, the more he noticed something off about her. Different. This was not the same girl who had been following them around the wasteland of Tokyo-3. At least, not entirely. This Rei seemed much more aware of her surroundings. She was fiddling with her fingers, as if looking for something to do with her hands. Her eyes would meander from place to place, as if constantly unsure of what to do next. She seemed to be looking for something to focus her attentions on, as if she sought not to merely be an observer to the world, but an active participant in it.

This Rei looked _alive_.

"Rei, do you remember who this is?" Ritsuko asked her, distracting her eyes from their endless wandering, as she focused them on Shinji.

She took a moment to mull the question over before speaking.

"Ikari…Shinji…" she said in a tiny, breathy voice.

Shinji's heart skipped a beat as he heard her say his full name.

"And do you remember what happened fourteen years ago?" Ritsuko prompted.

Rei's eyes flickered as she drew back into her memory with obvious effort.

"Fourteen years…an…an Angel battle," she said as she strained to answer the question. "Fire…and pain…loneliness…and…"

Then recognition suddenly flooded the girl's face.

"And then…Ikari…saved me…" she breathed, almost sounding like she didn't believe it herself.

Her eyes widened further, and unbidden, she stepped up to the bars to peer at him.

"Ikari…"

Shinji suddenly drew in a breath and was reciprocating the action before he even knew it, grabbing hold of the bars to peer back at her.

"Ayanami!" he exhaled, a mixture of exuberance and relief in his voice.

He dare not hope.

He dare not imagine.

He failed to notice Ritsuko press the button on the wall that opened the cell door, and he suddenly stumbled forward, having been leaning on the door a half second prior. Rei's eyes widened as he stumbled forward, falling into her, sending the two of them toppling over, landing in a very awkward, yet somehow familiar position.

"Whoops," Ritsuko blinked in honest surprise. "Sorry about that. Are you both okay?"

Shinji blinked as he regained stock of his surroundings, only to find a pair of red eyes staring up at him.

Fortunately, his hand hadn't landed anywhere compromising this time.

"Uh…I…" he stammered in complete stupefaction.

"Oooh," Mari's teasing voice came from behind him. "Moving in on Miss Ayanami already? What would the Princess think!?"

"It's not like that!" Shinji suddenly shot back instinctively, cheeks red.

"Will you get off?" Rei asked, simply.

"Oh!" Shinji blurted out, recoiling dramatically. "S-Sorry!"

He blushed hard, climbing to his feet, before offering a hand to help her up.

"Sorry," he repeated, holding up his other hand apologetically. "I'm just…really happy to see you again…"

For a moment, Rei seemed bashful.

"Happy…to see me…?" she asked, as if she had to consider the words he had told her, as if the words didn't quite make sense to her.

"Yeah!" Shinji affirmed excitedly. "I thought you were gone for good! I thought that I'd never…"

His expression suddenly darkened when his eyes fell on the choker around her neck.

"Dr. Akagi…" he said quietly. "Why is she wearing one of these?"

Ritsuko did not need him to specify what he was referring to.

"It's necessary, Shinji," she said simply. "For _our_ protection."

Shinji stared at Rei in utter disbelief. He had just gotten her back after believing her to be dead for so long…and now they meant to put a noose around her neck that could snuff the life out of her at any moment?

"Please, take this off her, Doctor," Shinji said, giving her a pleading look. "Leave mine on if you have to, but _please_ don't make her wear one too!"

Ritsuko frowned. "Captain's orders, Shinji. This isn't just the Rei _you_ remember anymore - she's an amalgamation of both BM-00α and BM-00β. A unique individual who possesses both of their memories and personalities; a more complete person than either of them."

Shinji's eyes were as wide as saucers.

"An…amalgamation…?"

Shinji took another look at Rei, her crimson eyes, blue hair and alabaster skin pristine and perfect, save for the black circle of unforeseeable death around her neck. He had suspected that he had been seeing her through rose-tinted glasses, but now that he was looking more closely, there was something more…natural about this Rei. More alive. Healthier. The subtle movements of her body seemed to suggest someone who felt more at-home in her own body. Someone who was more…human.

Ritsuko nodded. "Which means that she's just as dangerous as you are, Shinji. It's just too big a risk."

Shinji shook his head in disbelief. This was not what he had wanted at all! It just wasn't right to play with Rei's life like they have been doing! She didn't deserve any of this! She may have been created artificially, but she still had feelings! She still felt pain! She still cried! The first time he had really seen her, he had held her quivering, crippled body in his arms!

She had felt real! Her fear and agony had been real!

And as this new Rei returned his gaze, tilting her head slightly in curiosity as the souls of both his Rei and the Rei he had been coming to know looked back at him, Shinji had to fight back tears.

Ritsuko's revelation only made the girl he saw before him _that_ much more precious to him. This Rei was all he had left now. But if NERV and WILLE and anyone else didn't stop thinking they could play God with her life, than even this young, innocent girl would be sacrificed for nothing.

Just like Kaworu.

"Dr. Akagi, I am _begging_ you…please, don't do this!" he said, his voice quavering. "I've already lost someone I care about to one of these things! I'll do whatever you want me to, Doctor! Tell Misato she can keep me locked up in the coldest, darkest cell she can find! Just _please_…I can't watch this thing kill any more of the people I care about!"

The doctor lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry Shinji, but this is not open for debate. Captain Katsuragi made it very clear that this is non-negotiable. She is absolutely adamant about this. It's the only reason you're even getting to see her at all."

The tears finally came, and Shinji threw his arms around Rei's shoulders, sobbing as he clutched her to him.

It wasn't fair! It just wasn't fair! Not to him, and certainly not to her! All he had wanted to do was save her! What they had all been doing to Rei was just plain and simply cruel!

"Ikari…?" she asked inquisitively, sounding confused.

He shuddered. She must not have been aware of what the collar's purpose was. With all the jumbled memories floating around inside her head, it was a miracle she could even think straight, let alone have a conversation.

Oh, what she must have been going through right now…

"You're going to be alright, Ayanami…" Shinji choked out, smiling through his tears. "You're going to be just fine. I'll keep you safe…I promise…"

Rei did not seem to know how to react to that, until finally her hands came up to press against his back, returning his gesture for lack of any other recourse.

Ritsuko looked away, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, seemingly not wanting to let her scientific objectivity waver at the sight.

Mari put her hands on her hips and stared up at the security camera, giving it a dirty look.

"I hope you're watching this, Colonel," she spat in a bitter voice. "I hope you're proud of yourself. Such a shining example for all of humanity you are."

"Your glibness does you no credit, Makinami," Ritsuko chastised.

"Do I look like I give a damn?" she responded almost jokingly. "I've predicted just about everything that's happened here, up to and including _you_, Doctor. Your opinion of me is not very high on my priority list."

Ritsuko returned Mari's haughty smile with stern resolution.

"And you're going to stay locked in here until you tell us exactly how you did that."

"Well, I _am_ a genius, after all," she smiled smugly. "But you'll figure it out eventually. And when you do, I'm going to be your new best friend."

"We'll see about that…" Ritsuko sighed, pulling away from the wall and gesturing to the two guards waiting by the door. "Alright - we're moving you three to a larger cell. I'm sure the Colonel will want to speak with you all at some point later."

Shinji fixed Ritsuko with a cold stare as he was lead down the corridor to a more spacious holding cell, this one with two sets of bunk beds, holding Rei's hand in his own as she followed him in.

Ritsuko thumbed the switch on the wall, locking the three of them inside. Shinji's reaction to the DSS choker on Rei was severe, but not unexpected. Unfortunately, that had been one of the stipulations the Captain had made in order to agree to something like this. It was unfortunate, but if it made the Captain feel more secure, than it would ultimately be worth it.

Misato personally thought WILLE should be keeping them separated, but Ritsuko had been insistent - Shinji's emotions needed to be kept in check. And nothing would accomplish that better than spending some time with the girl he'd been desperate enough to cause Third Impact to save.

And as for Mari…as crowded as the cell was, as much of a lapse in decorum it was to detain men and women in the same cell, there was plenty good she could do in their company. All she had to do was keep taking Shinji's side on things, and there would be little worry that Shinji would rebel.

Ritsuko smiled as she left.

The little actress was playing her role to a tee.

* * *

To be continued…


	8. Chapter 8

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 8

* * *

Misato stared blankly at Dr. Akagi for several seconds, before furrowing her brow.

"You want to run that by me again, Doctor?" she said in a disbelieving tone.

It had been three hours since the new Ayanami Type - which was being classified as BM-03γ, or Rei′ - and the Wunder had still not taken to the air, or shown any signs of starting up again. Growing wary of their vulnerable state, Misato had once again invaded the lab area just outside the core, which Ritsuko appeared to have converted into her secondary office as of late.

"We cannot restart the Wunder's main drive," Ritsuko explained simply, gesturing to the helpful CG rendering of the Wunder's core on the computer screen. "At the moment, it's as if Unit 01's S2 engine has shut down."

Misato's eyebrow raised. "You're telling me that a source of perpetual energy has gone dead?"

"I don't believe it's _actually_ dead, but by all appearances, yes," Ritsuko clarified. "And I think I know the cause: Unit 01 seems to be in a self-imposed state of lock-down. It wasn't like that before now."

Misato crossed her arms. "You don't say…"

"Whatever process by which the Ayanami Type was removed from Unit 01 seems to have caused the Eva to lock down," Ritsuko elaborated. "We don't need to activate the Eva, but we _do_ need to bring it back up to an idle state in order to tap into it's S2 engine. We need to get it back online."

Misato shook her head. "I got that part. It's the part that came afterward that I'm having trouble swallowing."

Ritsuko pursed her lips. "Captain, apart from the sudden loss of power that occurred when the Ayanami Type merged with Unit 01's core, the Wunder's engines were still online before we proceeded with the extraction operation. It's natural to assume an engine might hiccup if you to shove something into it while it's still running, but the fact remains that once the process completed, the engines _did_ recycle themselves back on, saving the Wunder from a devastating crash. It was only _after_ Rei′ was extracted that the Wunder failed to activate."

Misato massaged her temples. It seemed that everyone and everything saw fit to try to fry her nerves today.

"So you want to put the Ayanami Type back into the entry plug and then put her into Unit 01, is that correct?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Just long enough to verify my hypothesis. The results will speak for themselves."

Misato closed her eyes and took a moment so as not to rail on one of the last people in the world she could call her friend.

"And this plan doesn't strike you as _completely insane_!?" Misato demanded.

Perhaps waiting another breath or two would have yielded more diplomatic results, she thought absently.

"I don't like it either, Captain, but what other choice do we have?" Ritsuko shot back. "We're dead in the water without Unit 01, and we're sitting ducks if a sentry happened to patrol these waters. We need to get airborne. And this is the _only_ option I can think of that's feasible in this situation."

Misato huffed and took a few frustrated steps around the limited floorspace of the small office, shuffling back and forth as she weighed the possibilities in her mind.

"You still have the DSS trigger, Captain," Ritsuko assured her. "You can neutralize the pilot if anything happens."

Misato rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was used to things being out of her control to a certain degree, but this was pushing it.

_"Not all of your subordinates are as loyal as you think, Colonel."_

Misato pounded the heel of her hand into her forehead. She would _not_ allow that mischievous little harlequin to cast suspicion on everyone she knew.

"We've been in uncharted waters from the get-go, Ritsu," she muttered quietly, looking out the view-port at the ship's non-functional core. "I don't know how much longer we can keep pushing our luck like this. Sooner or later, something's going to bite us in the ass that's too big for us to bite back."

Ritsuko said nothing. She knew the Captain would make the right decision if she gave her enough room to make up her mind. She had known Misato for practically all of her adult life, and had gained a comprehensive knowledge on the best times to push, and the best times to stand back and let the brilliant, tactical genius that she was call the shots.

Misato tugged off her captain's cap and straightened her hair.

"Oh, hell with it…" Misato exhaled in exhaustion, replacing her cap. "Fine. Let's go tempt fate."

* * *

Shinji stared in trepidation as Rei gingerly climbed into the entry plug for Unit 01. Everything about this felt wrong to him. NERV and WILLE had done nothing but take advantage of Ayanami since her inception, and this was no exception. It was becoming remarkably clear that to the people running the show, he and the other pilots were little more than tools for them to use. He was fine playing the role of a tool himself…but to put Ayanami through all that after everything she'd gone through…

"I'm surprised they let you out of your cell," came a familiar voice from behind him.

He turned saw Asuka in her WILLE uniform, wearing the same hat he had seen her in after he first woke up.

Shinji stared at the floor. "I thought you weren't talking to me."

Asuka crossed her arms, turning her attention to the operation at hand.

"I'm allowed to change my mind, you dolt!" she huffed indignantly, watching as the entry plug sealed itself, trapping the Ayanami Type inside.

The facilities here in the core weren't designed for launching Eva's, so everything had to be jury-rigged to allow for pilots to get to and from the entry plug and to get the entry plug to and from the Eva. The mechanical arm that served as an all-purpose utility tool was only so dexterous, which made getting a pilot inside of the Eva an intensive affair.

"Well, I've basically got a gun pointed at my head at all times," Shinji grumbled. "It's not like they even need to keep me locked up."

Asuka just shrugged.

In all honesty, though, Shinji wasn't sure either why Ritsuko had let him out of his cell. She had even invited him to watch Ayanami get into Unit 01. It was like WILLE was deliberately goading him, which didn't make much sense, given all that he had learned. Then again, nothing had made sense to him every since he had woken from his fourteen year slumber.

"So…" Shinji asked awkwardly. "Where's Unit 02?"

Asuka closed her eye. "It self-destructed after its fight with the Mark.09. Thank you _so _much for reminding me."

Shinji winced. "Sorry. I was just asking."

Asuka groaned, rolling her eyes. "God, you're such a brat…"

Shinji pursed his lips. It seemed he would really have to walk on eggshells with her.

"Misato said-"

"Colonel Katsuragi!" Asuka snapped. "Or Captain, or Ma'am. You don't _get_ to call her by that name anymore."

Shinji withered. Must everything she say be a reminder of his failure?

Asuka crossed her arms, exhaling in exasperation.

"Look," she snorted, as if she realized that she had been a little harsher than necessary. "There's a certain amount of decorum expected of you, Shinji. If you honestly expect to ever be one of us again, you better start _acting_ like it."

Shinji hung his head. This was going about as well as he could have predicted.

"Well…the, uh…Captain said that you were now WILLE's only pilot," Shinji muttered. "But all we've got is that…JA thing…"

"The Jet Alone Heavy Armor Infantry Unit," Asuka elaborated, as if reading from a textbook. "After Third Impact, the last of us had to scrounge what resources we could find. Turns out the UN had requisitioned the SSDF's mechanized infantry project in an attempt to turn it into an Anti-Evangelion army. They were so terrified that NERV would try to seize power when the war was over that they pursued every option available in order to try to prevent it. And since all the JA's required was a simple nuclear engine, they were a lot easier to mass produce than the IPEA's Mark.04 program."

Asuka snorted derisively.

"They actually thought a bunch of nuclear powered automatons would be a match for an Evangelion…"

Shinji blinked in surprise. He hadn't been expecting Asuka to actually give him a genuine answer.

"Can hardly blame them, though," she quipped. "In all truth, the UN _seriously_ underestimated just how much damage NERV could do in the end. And now that the world's gone to hell, their paranoia has actually benefited WILLE in the long run. When they're not being used to fend off sentries, the JA's have doubled as emergency power sources for what Lilin outposts we have. The single unit we have wouldn't be enough to power the Wunder of course, but a regular naval battleship could circumnavigate the globe with all the juice that one of these puts out. It's also kept survivors warm in the winter. A lot of lives have been saved because of these things."

Shinji swallowed. He hadn't really appreciated just how desperate the human race was at this point. Subsisting on nutrient paste and using a relic from the pre-Impact days to keep them warm in the winter, all the while being hunted by NERV…

WILLE really was the last bastion of hope for humanity, he mused.

So lost in thought, Shinji didn't even notice that the entry plug had already disappeared inside of Unit 01 until Asuka nodded in the Eva's direction.

"Let's hope that NERV clone of yours can get us moving again without starting another Impact."

Shinji was about to speak, but at that moment, the air suddenly filled with the sound of alarm bells.

* * *

Misato bit her lip as the entry plug was lifted up to the mouth of the insertion chamber. In her fist was the DDS trigger, her thumb hovering over the kill switch, watching in trepidation as what could easily be the doom of humanity stepped into the most powerful war machine on the planet.

"This had better work…" she muttered through gritted teeth. "Or there's literally going to be hell to pay."

Ritsuko eyed the Captain, warily. Already, she was regretting her suggestion to rely on the DSS trigger as a safety net. "Well, don't trigger it unless we know for an absolute certainty that there's a risk of awakening. Otherwise, you could very well be destroying our only hope of salvaging the Wunder."

Misato didn't match her gaze. She was watching the entry plug screw into place, wondering what was happening inside that bus-sized metal tube that could possibly render Unit 01 back into a viable power source _without _also awakening it and turning the Eva into a doomsday device.

"You don't have to make up for anything, Captain," Ritsuko said suddenly.

Misato blinked, not understanding. "What do you mean?"

Ritsuko continued to examine her instruments. "Don't think that you _have_ to kill someone today just because you couldn't do it earlier."

Misato threw her a dirty look. She knew _exactly_ what Ritsuko was referring to.

"Don't think that I won't do it if I have to," Misato countered.

"For Rei′, maybe," Ritsuko allowed. "But not Shinji. You wouldn't kill him then, and if it came down to it, I don't think you would do it now."

Misato wrinkled her nose and turned her attention back to the proceedings, unwilling to meet Ritsuko's gaze.

"That's a good thing, by the way," Ritsuko added, idly, tapping a few keys on her keyboard to bring up initial diagnostics. "It means you've still got some humanity left in there."

Misato exhaled. She was already wound up from such a high risk test like this. She was in no mood to be receiving lectures from an annoying doctor friend.

Ritsuko apparently realized this.

"No immediate reaction from topical immersion," she commented, scanning her instruments. "Beginning primary induction sequence."

Misato gritted her teeth, her knuckles whitening as her fingers tightened around the DDS trigger. The longer this dragged on, the more she was convinced that this was absolutely the worst idea to ever…

BREEEP! BREEEP! BREEEP!

Misato jerked wildly as the alarm bells sounded, and she nearly dropped the DSS trigger.

"What the hell's going on!?" she demanded, adrenaline pumping. "Is Unit 01 awakening!?"

"Negative!" Ritsuko replied in a hurried tone. "Unit 01 is still inactive!"

"Captain!" Lieutenant Commander Nagara's voice sounded over the intercom. "We've got a Code 4C up here! Repeat: Nemesis Seris inbound! Please advise!"

"_What_!?" Misato demanded incredulously, leaning in close to the communication's array. "Damn it, why now? Prep the JA Heavy Armor for launch! What's their number and ETA?"

There was a pause, presumably as one of the bridge crew relayed the desired intel.

"I count three Nemesis Series," Nagara finally responded. "They'll be on us in forty seconds!"

"Understood," Misato nodded. "Hold position and open fire as soon as they're in range!"

"Captain!" Nagara replied. "I've got _no_ engines and _no_ steering up here!"

"We're working on it, Lieutenant Commander!" Misato shouted back. "You're just going to have to hold out for a bit!"

"Aye, Captain!" Nagara's voice sounded nervous and excited at the same time.

Misato hoped that she was up to this. If she and Ritsuko couldn't pull a rabbit out of a hat somehow, Nagara would have to get real creative, real fast.

"How are we doing, Ritsu?" Misato snapped.

"Unit 01 is still silent, Captain," Ritsuko reported, somberly. "Rei′'s sync rate with the Eva is zero. Just like…"

Ritsuko paused, stroking her chin as she thought.

"What? What are you thinking?" Misato demanded, impatiently. "I need options here, Doc!"

Ritsuko bit her lip as she appeared to run through some calculations in her head, before pulling up some sync data onto her computer screen, comparing what appeared to be two different waveform patterns, before exhaling.

"I've got an idea, Captain…" she sighed in a tone befitting for their current predicament. "But you're _not_ going to like it."

As Misato listened to the Doctor's idea, she had to agree.

She did not like it at all.

"I can only assume that you're joking," Misato said dismissively. "I need a real answer here, Ritsuko."

The doctor simply stared silently at her.

"Ritsuko…"

"The data doesn't lie, Captain," Ritsuko pursed her lips, fixing the Captain with a serious look.

"Ritsuko…" Misato repeated again, staying calm with visible effort. "That is one line I will not cross. Letting that NERV clone into an Eva was the last straw, Doctor! I will _not_ jeopardize humanity on nothing more than a hunch!"

That's when the ship began to rock as the first of the Nemesis Series' attacks began to hit home.

"Taking fire, Captain!" Sumire Nagara's voice sounded from the intercom.

"Return fire!" Misato ordered absently, her eyes not leaving Ritsuko's.

"We're trying, Captain!" Nagara replied. "But we have zero maneuverability! The Nemeses are beneath the surface of the water! They're attacking from our blind spot beneath the ship's belly, and we are unable to angle the dorsal AT cannons to get a lock on them!"

"Just keep at it!"

Misato flipped a switch on the comm terminal to send a message to the launch bay.

"Ibuki, what's the status of the Jet Alone?"

"It's still being outfitted with underwater gear!" Maya's voice sounded from the other line. "Asuka just got here! We're scrambling the launch!"

Another round of shock-waves rocked the ship's hull, and both of the lab's occupants teetered as they attempted to remain standing.

"Captain, we're out of time," Ritsuko said firmly. "Without an AT field or the ability to return fire, the ship will go down before Asuka can do any good out there. This is our only option now, Misato."

She met Misato's gaze, as Misato simply stared back, ignoring the lapse in decorum at using her first name for old time's sake.

"Either we go out like fish in a barrel, or we go out swinging," Ritsuko reaffirmed quietly. "It's up to you."

Misato swore silently. It appeared that once again, she had been backed into a corner.

She took a breath.

And made her decision.

* * *

Shinji blinked in absolute and utter stupefaction.

"You want me to what?"

He looked up at the lab area, whose window overlooked the causeway surrounding the outer core, with Ritsuko staring down at him. Overhead, the mechanical arm bearing the entry plug was already descending towards him.

"We need you to get into Unit 01's entry plug with Rei," Ritsuko's voice said gently. "Don't worry; we don't need either of you to pilot at all. We just need you to get in and see if we can get the Eva to start up."

Shinji looked back and forth between the window overhead, and the entry plug, which was already sitting on the causeway, draining of LCL, before opening.

"Why?" was all he could think to ask.

Misato appeared at Ritsuko's side, arms crossed.

"We don't have time for twenty questions, Shinji," she said bluntly. "Either you get in, or we all die."

Shinji swallowed. That sounded eerily familiar.

Though having to share his entry plug was a new one.

"I thought you said that my sync rate was zero," he said, despondently. "That I would never pilot Eva again."

"You seemed to have no trouble piloting Unit 13," Misato shot back snidely.

"What the Captain is trying to say, Shinji," Ritsuko amended quickly, "Is that we want to try again."

Shinji turned his head up to look at Misato, who simply matched his gaze with a cold hard stare of her own. As high up as she was, with Unit 01 right before him, it reminded him of that first day at NERV, staring up at his father for the first time in years.

He gritted his teeth as he stared down at the metal floor beneath his feet. And so once again, they needed him to pilot for them. Oh, sure, it wasn't "piloting" per-say, but how long before the pain came? How long before the nightmares returned? How long before he would be made to bear the brunt of humanity's burdens?

And how long before they once again decided to blame him for everything when he inevitably made a mistake?

Another loud rumble shook the entire ship, as everything that wasn't bolted down shook and swung, causing Shinji to wobble precariously on the causeway.

"Please, Shinji!" Ritsuko cried out, her voice sounded sincere.

Shinji wrinkled his nose. He had wanted to help WILLE, but now it just seemed like he was back at NERV. Was this his lot in life? Was this the only way he would ever be useful to anyone? Was he doomed to always be the martyr for the world's salvation, whether he wanted it or not? Would he be forever trapped in an endless cycle of being damned if he did, and damned if he did not?

He was so _tired_ of being used. So _tired_ of being manipulated. So _tired_ of being everyone's scapegoat, their go-to person whenever something went wrong, whether that meant taking the heat or being the 'only one who could save everyone.' He was sick of it all! It was like he had a great big sign on his back, letting everyone around him know that they could expect _something_ out of him, whether that was to be their fall guy or their beast of burden.

No one ever seemed to consider his feelings for even a moment.

Then Shinji's eyes fell onto something black on the floor. He turned his head to see Asuka's black, peaked cap laying on the deck. It must have fallen off her head as she had run out of the core area. As soon as Misato had given the order, Asuka had barreled towards the launch bay without so much as a backwards glance. She was probably out there right now, fighting off a horde of angelic sentries in nothing but an outmoded piece of pre-Impact hardware, just like she had been at Outpost Naraka. Only this time, she wouldn't have an army of drones at her side, a battery of turrets backing her up, or even the Wunder, which seemed to be about as useful as a beached whale in its current state.

She would be fighting them alone.

Shinji squeezed his fist into a tight little ball.

If he backed down now, he would be validating every bit of the vitriol that Asuka, Misato and everyone at WILLE felt for him. Yes, it was unfair of them to lob contempt at someone who had honestly given it everything he had and failed.

But someone who wouldn't even try? That was unforgivable, no matter _how_ you sliced it.

"Alright," he said quietly, though he knew they could hear him. "I'll do it."

* * *

Three Nemeses were circling the Wunder like sharks circling a dying whale as it floated in the water, taking cruel, calculated strikes seemingly at random, but each one damaging critical areas. Without an AT field or even the ability to move, the ship was completely defenseless. The three Nemeses had linked tendrils, forming a circle around their prey, each one firing off in sequence the key segments of the hull. The Wunder was leaking LCL like a bleeding animal, too exhausted to fight back, but too stubborn to give up the ghost. And as the Nemeses became bolder and bolder with their strikes, it was clear to the crew that it would only be a matter of time until they sank.

That was, until a single JA Heavy Armor craft emerged from the launch bay beneath the ship, motoring along on its underwater gear through the red, murky ocean.

"Alright you sons of bitches!" Asuka shouted in full battle frenzy over the comm channels. "Come get some!"

The JA released a volley of N2 torpedoes at the surrounding red balls of merciless destruction, which went off like depth charges, buffeting each of the sentries. The Nemeses broke off their attack and dispersed, their tendrils disconnecting from one another as they reassessed their prey.

"Yeah, that's right!" Asuka hollered. "You _better_ run!"

As if responding to the taunt, one of the Nemeses' tendrils shot out, and latched onto Asuka's vessel, pulling the JA towards it through the water.

"Gah!" Asuka shouted, thumbing the trigger to send two more torpedoes into the sentry's carapace in response, though the creature's AT field deflected most of it, and the N2 detonation dealt more damage to the JA than to the Nemesis. "Get _off_ me!"

The Nemesis' tendrils began to seep into the JA unit's armor, the cold, dark metal slowly corroding into a rust-red material, as the Nemesis began transmuting the mech into core material.

"Damn it!" Asuka grunted in frustration, as her unit's control systems began to short out as complex circuitry and engine systems inside the JA's chassis began to metastasize into one, indelible red material. "The JA's being compromised!"

She had expected a response from the bridge of the Wunder, but at that moment, no one appeared to be offering any feedback.

This was most likely because the Wunder had begun to slowly lift out of the water with little to no warning or explanation.

"What the-!?" Asuka gasped, craning her unit's neck to peer up as the belly of the Wunder disappeared above the surface of the ocean.

* * *

As the ship lurched, Misato and Ritsuko were thrown this way and that within the lab as the Wunder suddenly rose. Alarm bells sounded, and the the air suddenly filled with a deafening howl as the engines kicked on. Out the plexiglass viewport, a resounding red glow emanated from the core as inside, the sound of Unit 01's S2 engine thrummed sonorously.

One look at their circumstances, and panic overtook Misato as she scrambled to the communication's array, stumbling and dodging flying junk as she did, gripping the control console for leverage as the entire floor slanted at an angle.

"Helmsman!" she blared into the comm unit. "Report!"

There came a sound of muffled shouts of confusion from the other line as the bridge crew blathered in alarm.

"The Wunder is back online, Captain!" Lieutenant Commander Nagara responded after a fashion, but sounding like she was concentrating on something else. "But the controls are unresponsive! The Wunder's acting on its own! It's Kamchatka all over again!"

"_Shit_!" the Captain swore, as she switched off the console and reached into her jacket pocket for the DSS trigger, keying it to both pilots' chokers. "Unit 01 must've taken control of the Wunder again! I _knew_ putting those two in there was a bad idea!"

"Wait!" Ritsuko shouted, clinging to the far wall for support, though from the angle of the tilt, it was the lower end as well, forcing her to stare up at her Captain. "Stop!"

Misato had been millimeters from triggering both DSS chokers with the push of a button, before turning to stare down at the Doctor, trying to figure out why she would stop her at this point.

___"Not all of your subordinates are as loyal as you think, Colonel."_  


Misato shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, shutting out Mari's words. Ritsuko would _never _betray her!

"I have to stop this _now_, Ritsuko!" Misato blared from the far side of the lab, clinging to the control console so as not to fall down the slanted room. "This has gone far enough!"

"Captain, we don't know _what's_ happening!" Ritsuko countered, as the entire lab shook with the rest of the ship. "This could be just the break we need! You pull that trigger, and you'll be throwing away our only chance to survive this!"

"I can't risk it!" Misato shouted back. Around them, chairs and desks overturned as papers and tools were flung through the air around them, sparks flying from every piece of machinery not bolted down. "I have to end this, _now_!"

"How far are you willing to go for your revenge!?" Ritsuko demanded, bluntly. "Are you willing to sacrifice everyone on this ship!? Because that trigger isn't just aimed at Shinji and Rei anymore, Captain! It's aimed at your entire crew!"

Misato was breathing hard now, looking between Ritsuko and the DSS trigger, uncertainty clouding her vision.

"I'm not-!" she said, haltingly, staring at the DSS choker like she didn't know what it was. "I'm not doing this for _revenge_, Ritsuko! I'm doing this for the sake of _humanity_!"

"No you're _not_!" Ritsuko hollered across the lab. "You're only doing it because you're _scared_!"

Misato blinked, staring incredulously at her old friend as the engines howled, the machinery sparking and hissing as the ship groaned all around them, their whole world reflecting the chaos in her heart.

"I don't _blame_ you, Misato!" Ritsuko continued, voice still loud, but her tone softening. "_I'm_ scared too! But if you pull that trigger out of fear, then you'll only be running away from your problems! Just like Shinji!"

Misato's eyes widened as she stared at the DSS trigger in her hands.

"This isn't _you_, Misato!" Ritsuko proclaimed. "The Misato that I know is a hero! And she wouldn't have to rely on something like _that_ to make her problems go away before she even understood them!"

For some reason, Misato thought of Shinji in that moment. Not Shinji, the desperate, ignorant boy-child who had nearly doomed humanity, or even Shinji the reticent Eva pilot who only wanted his father's approval.

No.

Instead, she thought of Shinji, the boy who she had taken into her home, shared her meals with, and practically adopted as her own. After so many years, she had refused to acknowledge even a sliver of that maternal emotion within her that driven her to stand up for Shinji when no one else would. In the time that followed Third Impact, she had tried writing it off as a fanciful whim, as the foolish desire of a lonely bachelorette who feared that she'd never know what it meant to have a family.

But even as Ritsuko repeated Shinji's words to her, all she could think about was how much he had looked up to her. For all the care and affection she had carelessly heaped on him in an attempt to spur him on as a pilot and give him the illusion of a family, Shinji had inadvertently _become_ her family, just as she had become his.

Third Impact had hurt her. It had _scared_ her. She had wanted _so_ badly to lay all that hurt and fear at someone else's feet. But that didn't take away their time together. Every word of encouragement, every thank you and goodbye, every tear shed…they had all meant something to her once.

And they still did.

No matter how she tried to deny it.

Misato took a breath.

Ritsuko was right. Some things were just too important to sacrifice.

As the craft shook all around them, she thumbed the DSS trigger into the 'off' position and let the device fall to the floor, clattering down the slanted room, where it slid to the corner of the lab.

Ritsuko sighed in relief and slowly climbed her way up to her long time friend and put her hand on her shoulder.

"Glad to see you haven't set aside your humanity just yet," she smiled, before turning her attention to the communication's array.

Misato blinked, still somewhat out of breath, as she watched the Doctor bring up a feed.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

On the screen, the view from the Wunder's external feeds and everything surrounding it came up on separate screens, breaking down into several different perspectives, and a final, digital recreation of the entire ship as it dodged and weaved between Nemeses, represented by shimmering red dots around it.

"Getting a visual," Ritsuko nodded at the screen. "Something tells me we won't want to miss this."

* * *

The remaining two Nemeses had reacted immediately to the Wunder's takeoff, breaking through the surface to levitate towards the mighty warship and give chase, still keeping below the hull and out of range of the dorsal cannons. The ship's AT drive was online, but with the maneuvering thrusters removed for repair, the drones were staying out of range of the AT cannons with ease. All the while, the Wunder was still smoldering and leaking LCL from damage already sustained, and taking fire even as it flew.

In the ocean below, Asuka still wrestled with the third Nemesis, her JA Heavy Armor unit slowly deteriorating into core material.

Asuka gritted her teeth. She would need to eject eventually, but she was loathe to surrender their one and only mech with two other Nemeses out there, haranguing their already damaged capital ship. Failing armor or not, Asuka knew that she represented the Wunder's best chance of survival at this point.

At least, until the Wunder started flapping its wings.

As if frustrated with its lack of maneuverability, the Wunder let out an earsplitting scream as the armored shell casing around the joints at the base of its wings suddenly crumbled into detritus. And then suddenly, the ship banked in mid-air, buffeting the surface of the ocean with its two massive steel wings as it ducked under the Nemeses' next energy blast, and fought to get an angle on the sentries.

"What the hell…?" Asuka blinked as she watched the warship through her view screen, her cockpit's display receiving sensor data from the Wunder's bridge and giving her a fairly accurate visual.

In its entire term of service, the Wunder had _never_ moved like this before! It was functionally just a ship, despite any appearance it had to a living thing, and any moving parts were invariably internal and man-made. But now the Wunder was swooping through the air like an over-sized bird, flapping its wings and twisting and turning in mid-air to dodge the Nemeses' laser fire and return fire with its dorsal AT cannons, letting out sonorous screams as it fought.

Asuka was lost for words, however, at what happened next.

Despite its renewed maneuverability, the AT cannons still failed to connect with their targets. Its targeting sensors had most likely been thrown off by the sudden lurching of the Wunder's body as it made very un-ship-like movements through the air above the sea. After a few failed shots, however, the twin sensor modules that covered the ancient beast's skeletal eye sockets began to crumble and fall away. At the same time, just as the once stationary wings had suddenly moved on their own accord, so too did the great creature's neck, as the beast swung its head to track one of the orbiting Nemesis sentries.

And that's when the two black pools of emptiness that were its eye sockets began to shimmer a brilliant red.

TSEEEW!

Twin optical cannons let loose, and the first sentry was obliterated in an instant, leaving behind a cross-like plume of energy that sank into the sea.

The Wunder swiveled its head to followed the remaining airborne sentry.

TSEEEW!

And in another instant, the second of the Nemesis had been reduced to dust, leaving behind another cross-shaped explosion in its wake.

Asuka stared in awe, as a smile slowly began to creep across her face.

"Well, now…" she grinned. "_That_ changes things…"

Asuka felt an unfamiliar rush wash over her. For the first time in fourteen years, she felt that maybe, just maybe, WILLE really stood a fighting chance now.

With a victorious huff, she jettisoned her escape pod, triggering the JA's self destruct sequence before her cockpit flew out of the back of her mech, bursting through the water and sailing through the air, leaving the rotting carapace of her armor to explode in a massive bubble of nuclear combustion, taking the solitary Nemesis along with it.

* * *

Gasping and panting for breath, Shinji clutched the control yokes within his entry plug, awkwardly sharing the seat with Rei, her own hands over his own. Around them, they could see the red ocean spanning for miles in every direction, as the last flecks of dust that had once been the two Nemeses drifted away. Shooting them down had been a completely unconscious effort; he had simply looked at them, identified them as a threat in his mind, and the ship had apparently aimed and fired on its own, as if reacting to his fear.

Then there was a sudden dull 'boom' as a massive plume of water abruptly erupted from the ocean below as the last Nemesis was obliterated by the equivalent of an atom bomb. At the same time, a single bright mote of light breached the surface of the ocean and took off through the air, only to splash down half a kilometer away.

"Asuka…" Shinji muttered, and before he knew it, the city-sized craft had turned to follow the trail, once again seeming to react to his very intention.

That's when Ritsuko's face appeared on his screen.

"Shinji," she said. "The fight is over. I need you to stand down now."

Shinji hesitated. "But…Asuka…"

"We'll take care of recovering the JA's escape capsule," Ritsuko instructed, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Transfer control over to Lieutenant Commander Nagara. We can handle things from here."

Shinji blinked, staring at the interior of the entry plug in befuddlement. "H-how…how do I…?"

He felt a gentle pair of hands take hold of his wrists, gently lifting them off the control yokes.

"A-Ayanami…?" he said, turning to face her.

She just simply his gaze.

"Hmm?" she hummed, as if curious to what he wanted.

As his hands left the controls, the words "Primary Control Relinquished" appeared in big white letters across his display.

"Very good, Shinji," Ritsuko nodded approvingly. "You've gone above and beyond what we've expected of you today."

Behind Ritsuko's face, Shinji could just barely make out Misato's face.

"I…" he muttered, completely unsure of what had just happened. "I don't understand…how did I synchronize?"

"You didn't," Ritsuko answered. "At least, not alone. By yourselves, you and Rei each have a sync rate of zero. But when you _combine_ your two waveform patterns…"

To illustrate her point, Ritsuko sent a CG graphic to appear next to her image on Shinji's display, showing two different waveform patterns slowly merging into one, and the double helixes lining up almost perfectly.

"It's a similar concept to Unit 13's dual entry system," Ritsuko said excitedly, moving off screen, her scientific exuberance momentarily getting the best of her. "We'll have to re-prioritize our research into this back at base. I've almost got the calculations mapped out. Oh, this could be _just_ the data we need to salvage Unit's 02 and 08…"

As Ritsuko wandered off, muttering to herself, Misato appeared behind where she had been standing, crossing her arms and stepping up to peer back at Shinji.

"We're going to have to leave you two in there until we make it back to Kamchatka," she explained simply. "The Wunder won't seem to fly without the both of you in the entry plug."

Shinji nodded slowly. "I…I understand Misato - um…Captain…"

Misato took a breath.

"I suppose congratulations are in order, Shinji," she muttered, sounding somewhat withdrawn. "You and Rei have not only managed to get the Wunder back up and running again, but you also seem to have unlocked some powerful new abilities with it. It appears that WILLE has finally found a use for you."

Shinji blinked, exchanging a look with Rei, who simply stared back, still seemingly puzzled by their current circumstances.

"Does this mean…" he asked, hesitantly, "That you want us to pilot again?"

Misato exhaled in acquiescence. "Shinji…what this means is that you and Rei are now the Wunder's new co-pilots."

* * *

End of Part 1

A/N: Taking a (hopefully) short break to plan out Part 2.

Also, FYI, this is how I'm pronouncing the following terms:

BM-00α - "BM-Zero-Zero-Alpha"

BM-00β - "BM-Zero-Zero-Beta"

BM-00γ - "BM-Zero-Zero-Gamma"

Rei′ - "Rei Prime"


	9. First Interlude

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Interlude

* * *

Shinji stood nervously outside Asuka's bunk.

Now that he was on the Wunder's crew, he had been let out of his prison cell and allowed to freely roam most of the ship. The choker was still fixed to his neck, so he supposed it ultimately did not matter where he was kept - he could be neutralized at the push of a button. But by now, he had grown used to that

WILLE had set him up in a bunk near the other pilots, though it was sparse and confined enough that it was not much of an upgrade from the brig. But at least he could come and go as he pleased. And it was private.

WILLE had even issued him a uniform, which matched the uniforms of the bridge crew - a blue jumpsuit and a white flak jacket with orange shoulder pads. Also, according to his suit's tags, it seemed his official rank now was Ensign, which still would have made him the lowest ranking member of WILLE, though he wasn't entirely sure that the tags hadn't simply belonged to the last member of WILLE to own the uniform.

But it was something.

Shinji had not seen Asuka since speaking to her by the core area earlier that day, and since then, she had nearly died in the midst of combat. Although he knew her well enough to know that she would say that it had been a cinch for her.

Still, he had worried about her.

His hand came up to knock at her door.

There was no answer at first. He glanced as his wrist chronometer; it was after hours, so unless she was on standby…

His hand came up to knock again, but the door sudden slid open, and a very tired looking Asuka appeared in little more than a tank top and panties.

"Nnnnnnnng…" she groaned through a single, blurry eye. "What?"

Shinji flinched slightly. He was used to an Asuka that would flay him alive for laying eyes on her in such a state of undress. He wasn't sure why she wasn't, but clearly he had awoken her, which only doubled his chances of pissing her off if he misspoke.

"Asuka…" he said by way of greeting. "I'm, uh…glad you're alright…"

Asuka closed her eye and sighed. "Is that all you woke me up to say, Shinji?"

Shinji shook his head and held out his hands, holding Asuka's black peaked cap out to her.

"I…think you dropped this…" he mumbled apologetically.

Asuka blinked for a moment at the proffered item, furrowing her brow to focus on it.

"Hey…" she muttered, snatching it from his hands. "I was looking for that!"

She turned it over in her hands, inspecting it for blemishes and straightening it out, making sure none of the buttons had fallen off. It may have been the late hour, but Shinji could have sworn he'd seen the ghost of a smile on her face.

But then she seemed to suddenly realize that Shinji was still standing there, and was watching her fawn over the silly thing, and her cheeks reddened slightly.

"Don't touch my shit!" she ordered, slamming the heel of her hand into her door control, abruptly closing the door in his face.

Shinji flinched at the sudden response. On the one hand, he was somewhat disheartened that her reaction hadn't been kinder, but on the other, he was somewhat glad that it hadn't been worse. Asuka had seemed genuinely glad to have her hat back. It seemed to mean a lot to her for some reason, though he dare not ask of it if this was her reaction just from him laying a hand on it.

He was about to head back to his own bunk, when he heard her voice speak out from behind the door.

"Also…" she said, somewhat hesitantly, "…Thanks."

Shinji paused in his step, not sure if he had heard correctly.

For a moment, he thought he had heard the old Asuka again.

He observed her door for a moment longer, in case she deigned to say anything else. But it appeared that that would be it for the time being.

The corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he made his way back to his bunk.

It was definitely something.

* * *

A/N: About halfway through drafting out Part 2. Will hopefully begin posting again before the end of the month. Stay tuned.


	10. Chapter 9

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 9

* * *

Several days after WILLE's newest crew-members were inducted, the AAA Wunder hovered high above the waters of the Arctic Ocean. Around it were a half a dozen decommissioned battleships and patrol boats, hovering within the grasp of the ship's AT field. And a few kilometers ahead of it, a dozen dyed-red weather balloons standing in as mock-up Nemeses hung in the air, scattered in a random array. As the ship approached the targets, its dorsal AT cannons swiveled to take aim, before letting loose a hail of vibrant red energy fire. The weather balloons, considerably less sturdy than actual Mark.04-C frames, combusted within moments, and were completely obliterated by the time the Wunder ceased fire.

Misato had her arms and legs crossed as she sat in the Captain's chair on the bridge.

"Time," she ordered.

"Twelve point four seven seconds, Captain," Lieutenant Kitakami reported.

Misato nodded. "Very good. Let's proceed to the next area."

Sumire Nagara nodded and urged her control yokes forward, driving the Wunder ahead to where another dozen weather balloons hung in the air.

Next came the part that gave Misato pause.

"Alright," she commanded. "Prepare to transfer control to Unit 01."

As the engineers on deck all grunted in confirmation and got to work setting up the power transfer, Lieutenant Commander Nagara sat back in her seat, a look of uneasiness on her face.

"Something on your mind, Nagara?"

The dusky woman looked from her brooding at her Captain and sat up straight.

"Nothing of importance, Captain," she said dismissively.

Misato just sighed, removing her cap.

"Let's hear it."

Nagara chewed on her lip. It wasn't entirely clear where their Captain stood on the matter at hand. While at one time, she had been one of the principal denouncers of Shinji Ikari's participation in this war, it had been Captain Katsuragi who had ordered this new change in structure. While much of it had been due to extenuating circumstances, it still felt like a lapse in their principles, and it was one that did not sit comfortably with most of the crew.

"I'm just not really comfortable letting the kid who nearly destroyed the world take the Wunder's helm," Nagara said simply.

Misato nodded. "Neither am I, Lieutenant Commander. But the Wunder will only fly if the two of them are in that entry plug now. And as long as they're in there, we might as well put them to use. I'd be lapse in my duties as Captain if I didn't see the advantage in that. And we can always override the connection at any time."

Nagara nodded. "I understand all that Captain. But still…"

Misato nodded. It had been something she had been wrestling with for a while as well, and it was not a problem that had an easy solution.

"Doctor Akagi told me a story once," Misato said, offhandedly. "She was having a conversation with one of her old classmates, who had gone on to become an orthopedic surgeon. And while they were talking, her classmate was trying to explain how invasive her practice was for her patients. To elaborate on her point, she gave the analogy that if a patient's arm had been broken by a sledgehammer, the surgeon's task could be compared to taking that same sledgehammer, and breaking the arm back into place."

The corner of Sumire's mouth curved up into a wry smile. "Remind me never to go to any of Doctor Akagi's classmates if I ever need a doctor."

Misato snorted. "The point she was trying to make was that both processes involve inflicting a certain amount of trauma on the patient. But Dr. Akagi put it another way."

Nagara nodded curiously. "Which was?"

Misato let out a sigh.

"Shinji may have been the one to break the world," she said. "But that just means that he's the one who's best equipped to put it all back together again. Whether we like it or not."

The helmswoman frowned at that. "Do you really believe that, Captain?"

Misato shook her head. "Not really. But it doesn't really matter _what_ I believe anymore now, does it?"

* * *

Shinji and Rei were seated in a modified entry plug inside of Unit 01, still within the Wunder's core. This entry plug had two seats, one behind the other, with Rei seated before Shinji, to allow both pilots to sit comfortably, each with their own set of control yokes. The entry plug had also been modified to allow the bridge crew to override their control over the Wunder, a process by which Ritsuko had deduced after many long nights of experimentation on the neural connections between the entry plug and the Eva. Normally, the entry plug was designed to modulate plug depth in order to accommodate for the pilot's sync ratio, but in order to sever the pilots' control over the Eva without shutting the Eva down entirely, the entry plug had been modified to lower and rise on command, allowing the crew of the Wunder to limit the pilots' sync ratio to as low as ten percent, low enough to keep the Eva in standby without registering any of the pilots' mental commands.

It was a rather stringent compromise, but Shinji and Rei weren't exactly in a position to argue, even if they wanted to.

Both pilots were wearing their black NERV issued plug suits, though Ritsuko had stripped them of any tech that she had found questionable. All around them, the red waters of the Arctic Ocean expanded outward in all directions, tiny wisps of clouds visible here and there. Around them, the floating carapaces of the decomissioned naval warships floated all around them, stripped of their useful parts. And before them, the dozen or so red targets, floating haplessly in the air before them, standing out obtrusively against the clear blue sky.

A familiar face appeared on the screen before him, wearing a black beret and a stern expression.

Shinji searched the recesses of his memory of a name.

"Miss…Ibuki…?" he asked, dumbly.

"That's _Lieutenant Commander_ Ibuki, if you don't mind," she snapped, reprimandingly. "I'll be conducting the training exercise for today."

Shinji wasn't sure how to respond to that. Something in the Lieutenant Commander's tone suggested that she would have rather been anywhere but there.

"Look alive, you two," Maya said in a rough yet resigned tone, the white letters spelling out 'Primary Control Granted' blinking on the screen beside her. "The bridge has turned the flight control of the Wunder over to you. Go ahead and take hold of the handles."

Shinji obeyed hesitantly, grabbing onto the control yokes as Rei mirrored his actions in front of him.

"Do you have control, Shinji?" Maya asked, expectantly.

Shinji nodded. "Yeah."

"Say the words then," Maya instructed in an annoyed tone.

Shinji squeezed a bit harder on the yokes. "I have control."

"That's better," Maya nodded. "Rei?"

Rei nodded in response. "I have control."

Maya nodded again. "Alright. During this training exercise, Rei will be handling combat maneuvers, while Shinji will be responsible for targeting. Shinji?"

"Yes ma'am?" Shinji replied, feeling more and more nervous around the Lieutenant Commander by the minute.

"You've gone through the targeting simulations," she said. "The Wunder will take care of aiming and firing. All you have to do is identify the targets for the Wunder to shoot at. You should in theory be able to prioritize your targets to determine what order the Wunder fires on first, but for now it's probably best not to get too ambitious, so let's just stick to basics here. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am," Shinji responded again.

"Good," Maya continued impatiently. "Rei?"

"Yes ma'am?" Rei replied.

"Do _not_ crash the ship," Maya said, absolutely serious. "When you're in a combat situation, your job is putting the ship in the most tactically advantageous position possible. But no matter what the circumstances, the safety of the ship is your top priority. I cannot stress to you enough: do _not_ crash this ship. The Captain gets _very_ pissed when that happens, so we want to keep it to a minimum. Is that clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Rei repeated.

Shinji blinked in surprise. He couldn't tell if Lieutenant Commander Ibuki was trying to be humorous or not.

"Good," Maya went on. "Rei, take us closer to the targets ahead. Shinji, as soon as you're in range, open fire with the Wunder's S2 cannons."

As the ship neared the floating weather balloons, Shinji focused on the closest one, thinking the word "enemy" in his head, doing his best to associate the red balloon with the Nemesis Series that had been nipping at their heels at every turn.

He didn't even see the shot fired, since he was technically looking through the very eyes that were doing the shooting. The world around him simply pulsed red, and all of the sudden there was one less balloon in the sky, and a bright red cross where it had been.

Gritting his teeth, he focused on the next balloon, and the next. One by one, they all vaporized in a flash of red energy. He had to admit, it was comforting to have Rei take the helm while he did the shooting. It allowed him to focus on one thing, while Rei worried about keeping the ship on course. As an Eva pilot, he was used to having to do several things at once, but with Rei keeping them steady, and with the ship itself taking care of the pointing and clicking, it was actually somewhat liberating to have one simple task before him.

Of course, this was just a training exercise.

"Fifteen point eight two seconds," Maya reported, her face reappearing on screen. "Not bad for a first field test, I suppose. Rei, I'm sending you a map of the local area. Take us to the next training position."

"Understood," Rei nodded.

Below him, Shinji could see Rei peering at a screen readout of her own, as she gently nudged the control yokes forward. As jumbled and out of place as her memories were, she seemed to take to piloting naturally. It seemed to be the thing she was born to do, he thought with a frown.

Ahead of them lay another set of balloons, this bunch much larger and consisting of four different colors, arranged randomly in the air.

"Next, we need to determine how well you can distinguish friendlies from hostiles," Maya announced on the screen. "I want you to target the _red_ and the _blue_ balloons, but leave the _white_ and the _black_ ones alone. Think you can manage that?"

Shinji nodded. "I think so."

"Well, we'll see then," she replied. "Get to it."

Shinji had to concentrate hard on this one. If he had simply had the one color to focus his fire on, it would be easier, but now he had two. And he couldn't just fire indiscriminately either, or he'd risk hitting the others.

The solution he came to was a straightforward one: focus on one color, and then the other. Within six seconds, all the red balloons had been vaporized, and in the following seven seconds, so had the blue ones.

"Hmm," Maya mused to herself. "Not the most efficient dispersal, but your timing's actually improved. Let's see if you can keep that up, Shinji."

Shinji tried not to let the words of praise get to him, but old habits died hard, and he couldn't help a smile from coming to his face.

"Thanks…"

"Alright, this next test is for Rei," Maya announced, sounding bored. "First, we're going to test the Wunder's maneuverability. Ahead, we've put together a bit of an obstacle course. Keep the red balloons on your left, and the blue ones on your right, until you get to the white balloon at the end. After that, we're going to test the Wunder's speed, so swing around that white balloon, activate the S2 drive, and take the Wunder back to base as fast as it can safely go. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Rei replied crisply.

Shinji looked up to see the next set of balloons, marking a clear and distinct path ahead of them. The red and blue balloons were arranged such that the ship would have to make wide, zig-zagging turns to clear them as Lieutenant Commander Ibuki had instructed.

He gripped his control yokes tightly. This was going to be a bumpy ride.

"Begin!" Maya ordered.

Shinji was pushed back into his seat as the Wunder kicked into gear, swooping forward towards the first red balloon. He saw the balloon pass by on the left, and then the world practically turned sideways as Rei banked left, throwing him into the side of his seat. The Wunder turned hard to make its way to the next balloon, before leveling out and banking right again, throwing Shinji against the other side of his chair. This continued several times after, and Shinji began to feel sick, until the white balloon mercifully appeared on their screen.

"Whew…" he breathed, sitting back.

But his relief was premature, as for some reason, in lieu of circling the marker, Rei chose to fly _under_ the balloon. The ship dipped downward, before pulling all the way up to point the Wunder's nose at the sky, and then kept arcing upward until the Wunder had flipped upside down. Shinji looked up to see deep red ocean water over his head, and he nearly vomited.

"Ayanami…!?" he whimpered, voice vibrating with the rumbling with the jostling of the ship. "What are you…doing…!?"

"Hmm?" she hummed, looking up at him curiously.

Without even looking, she twisted the control yokes, and the Wunder righted itself. An instant later, Shinji was plastered back into his seat as the Wunder's S2 drive kicked in, propelling the warship forward at super-sonic speeds.

"YAAAHHH!" Shinji cried out in alarm, gripping his control yokes for dear life as the G-forces caused his stomach to sink inward as the clouds rushed past his view-screen so fast he could hardly make them out. The sea and the sky overhead practically stretched out of existence, whipping by in the blink of an eye, and before long, the water gave way to a gray-green landscape.

Just as Shinji was starting to develop tunnel vision, the Wunder quickly slowed down to leisurely cruising speed, and Shinji was thrown forward, bracing himself on his control yokes.

"Gah!" he gasped, taking a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Ugh…I think I think I'm going to be sick!"

Rei tilted her head back to peer at him, concerned. "Are you well, Ikari?"

Shinji was panting for breath. "Yeah, I think so…just let me catch my breath!"

As he recovered himself, he was aware of Rei's eyes still on him, and he straighten himself up, trying to recompose himself with some level of grace.

"Whew…" he breathed, smiling weakly back at her. "That was…really fast…"

"Yeah, no kidding," Maya's face popped up on screen, in the process of replacing her hat, which had apparently tumbled off her head during the trip. "The SR-71 clocked in at about mach three point two, and the Wunder just passed that by about eight percent. Yeah, I think we're done here for today. Transfer control back to Nagara, and prepare to pack it up for the day."

Shinji was still catching his breath, and he was only just noticing the navy battleships still floating around them, seemingly no worse for wear, which he assumed was a good thing. They must have also been testing to see what supersonic speeds would do to their naval escort in battle. And on the ground, he saw a settlement not one kilometer ahead of them that was serving as their base of operations for the time being.

Lilin Outpost Zion. The largest collection of human beings on Earth, totaling just under five hundred thousand, mostly women, children, elderly and infirm.

And it was built above the excavation site of the AAA Wunder.

* * *

"What do you mean, I have to share an entry plug with _her_!?"

Asuka pointed a derisive finger in Mari's direction, who only appeared to be amused by her outrage.

The two of them along with Dr. Akagi were standing in one of the briefing rooms in the militarized area of Lilin Outpost Zion, which offered a spectacular view of the skyscraper sized hole in the ground that made up the majority of the outpost. The entire facility was constructed around a massive pit, just a few kilometers inland of the eastern Siberian coast, that stretched as wide as a city and went down seemingly without end. The surface level perimeter was lined with defensive bunkers and barricades, launch bays that stored the bulk of WILLE's JA Heavy Armor platoon, as well as a colossal defense array that included two super-powerful AT generators that projected an enormous yellow hemispherical dome over the entire complex, and a secondary one straight across the pit itself for added protection of the civilian population.

As the facility went further inward and further down, the base actually built into the very walls lining the pit, the architecture became more residential, the compounds housing the families of WILLE's soldiers, as well as what few surviving refugees had been recovered from all the nations of the world. Over the past fourteen years, as WILLE outposts sprouted up throughout the globe, more and more refugees had found their way to these tiny bastions of safety, as little by little, the survivors were ferried to humanity's most secure stronghold. And as more and more people flooded their borders, the number of helping hands grew, and the residential areas continued expanding ever downward. It was an arrangement that left the facility very open to aerial attack should the AT barrier fail, which is why there were four evenly spaced AT cannons mounted along the surface perimeter, each equal in power to the Wunder's own armaments.

Within the JA launch areas were also custom fabricated Evangelion cages, and it was here that the remains of Unit 02 and 08 had been brought.

Which in turn had lead to the source of Asuka's current aggravation.

"I've tolerated quite a lot these past few days!" Asuka blared on, with Ritsuko listening with the utmost patience, and Mari just rolling her eyes. "I've put up with that sniveling brat bugging me at every turn! I've put with his freaky oedipal sex-doll following us around like a lost puppy! I've even tolerated the two of them not only being brought into the ranks of WILLE, but actually given control of the ship!"

"On a provisional basis," Ritsuko amended.

"There shouldn't even _be_ a basis!" Asuka ragged. "There is _no_ precedent for any of this! And to top it off, my only fellow pilot for the last fourteen years turns out to be some kind of sleeper agent or something! And now you expect me to put my _life_ in her hands!? How in the _hell_ is the Colonel okay with this!? Why isn't Four-Eyes being interrogated?"

"We've already made some progress on that front," Ritsuko said calmly, reaching for her cup of coffee. "But quite frankly, this is all above your pay grade, Captain. Colonel Katsuragi and I have already taken everything you're saying into account."

Asuka exhaled in a huff. "Where _is_ the Colonel, anyway? I have a few choice words to relate to her about all this, and none of them pleasant!"

"She's conducting a training exercise on the Wunder," Ritsuko explained. "She should be returning soon. But in any case, she and I have already discussed this, and it's been decided that until further notice, pilot Makinami will be allowed out of her cell for sync testing purposes. No matter her allegiances, we _still_ need her to get Unit 08 to start up. And we're _going_ to make use of her, even if it means we have to keep her shackled into her pilot seat. And if she causes any trouble, we always have this."

Ritsuko held up a DSS trigger, and only then did Asuka notice the choker around Mari's neck, and her one eye widened.

"Wait a minute…" Asuka blinked, suddenly back-pedaling. "You don't mean to actually _execute_ her, do you!?"

Mari smiled. It was nice to see that, despite all her bluff and bluster, Asuka still had a heart under that harsh exterior. Bravado and browbeating aside, they had still worked together for fourteen years, and had become something like friends in that time. Those pet names they had for each other weren't _completely_ mean-spirited after all.

"What did I say, Princess?" she smirked sardonically, tugging at her collar. "It was only a matter of time before they slapped one of these on us."

"This one hasn't been set to terminate," Ritsuko reassured the two pilots. "Just to stun. Pilot Makinami doesn't represent an Apocalyptic threat, just a security risk. At the push of a button, the collar will administer a fifty-thousand volt electrical charge that's designed to non-lethally incapacitate the wearer."

"Like a taser…" Asuka mused, giving Mari an odd look. "You know…those things can still kill you if it hits you for too long…"

The brunette could have been imagining things, but she could have sworn she's seen genuine sympathy in her gaze.

"Awww…" Mari smiled, melodramatically. "Is someone worried about little old me?"

Asuka snorted derisively and turned back to the Doctor, giving her a deadpan stare.

"Can I see that DSS trigger for a second?"

"No," Ritsuko said plainly. "You'll just abuse it."

"Come on," Asuka grumbled. "I'll only abuse it for a little bit."

"No," Ritsuko proclaimed. "Now stop being childish"

"Fine," Asuka sighed. "But all of this still doesn't explain why you need the _two_ of us to be in the same entry plug! What's happened to our Eva's, anyway? I thought you said they've been mostly salvaged."

"See for yourself…" Ritsuko waved her hand out the window.

Asuka approached the window and peered off in the direction the Doctor was pointing.

There, laying across the floor of one of the facility's makeshift Eva cages, were the two mangled husks that had once been Units 02 and 08. Unit 08 looked mostly salvageable, though its arms were a lost cause, and it was still nowhere near fighting shape. Unit 02, whose core had detonated, was little more than a torso and a head. But it was not the level of battle damage their Eva's had sustained that made Asuka draw in her breath.

It was the fact that the two enormous bio-weapons were in the process of being grafted together.

"_Mein gott_…" Asuka whispered in disbelief. "This is…"

She wheeled on the professor, a look of shock and earnest hurt on her face.

"What are you _doing_ to my Eva!?"

"Asuka…" Ritsuko explained gently. "We don't have the resources to salvage either unit by itself. This is the only way we get even a single functioning Eva after the damage they've sustained."

Asuka placed her hand over the glass, a look of revulsion on her face. "This is…this is _despicable_…"

"It's our most sure-fire option, Asuka," Ritsuko lit a cigarette. "Terminal Dogma is protected by a dual relay synapse barrier. Even the power of an Evangelion cannot penetrate its lower recesses. But an Eva built on a dual entry system, such as Unit 13 was, should theoretically have the ability to penetrate this barrier. Thanks to Shinji and Rei, the Wunder itself should have the ability to do so now. But the Wunder's system relies on a single massive core, which may not be enough to sustain the dual harmonic structure needed to break through. If that's the case, we want the two of you piloting this hybrid unit, which will contain two full Eva cores. There's still a lot we don't understand about dual entry systems, so you two are going to be trail blazers."

Asuka continued to stare in disbelief, while Mari continued to watch from the sidelines.

"Question," Mari piped, like she was in a classroom. "How's that gonna work if Unit 02 doesn't have a core anymore? It blew up in the fight with the Mark.09, remember?"

Ritsuko took a puff from her cigarette. "We'll just have to find another one. None of this is going to be happening right away. We're just planning for the inevitable confrontation."

Asuka furrowed her brow. "Confrontation?"

"We can't keep up this game of cat and mouse with NERV forever," Ritsuko explained. "Eventually, we're going to have to take the fight to them. And it's my job to make sure that when we do, we have the tools we need to make it count."

Asuka still could not believe what she was seeing. It was not enough that she had to sacrifice her Eva in the line of duty, but now they were affixing its corpse to the body of that favored Four-Eyes's unit, disgracing its sacrifice by making a mockery of its remains. It was reprehensible!

"Can I count on you, Asuka?" Ritsuko asked, insistently.

Asuka let out a sigh. Nothing about this was right. But like it or not, this was what she'd signed up for. She knew from the get go that it wasn't going to be glamorous. Sure, the situation was a lot worse than anyone could have predicted. But she was Captain Asuka Shikinami Langley! She was nothing if not resilient, and she was not about to let this little set-back get the best of her!

So let them jury-rig her Eva into some sort of abomination! Let them have her pilot it alongside that traitor! At least she would still be doing what she did best.

Piloting Eva.

"Fine," Asuka huffed, crossing her arms. "But you and the Colonel are really pushing it with all this. Nothing about this is sitting right with me…"

She fixed Mari with a cold stare.

"And you…" she sneered. "I don't know what kind of connections you have to manage all this, Four-Eyes. But one of these days, your luck's going to run out. And when it does, I just hope I'll be there to see it."

Mari gave her hair a toss, smiling defiantly.

"Princess," she grinned, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

* * *

To be continued…


	11. Chapter 10

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 10

* * *

After its field test, the Wunder docked at Lillin Outpost Zion, the entire ship resting upon a dry dock the size of a small harbor, with cranes and mechanical arms hovering over it like a protective embrace. After the ship powered down, Shinji and Rei were finally let out of Unit 01's entry plug. It was a little tedious, having to spend the majority of their time aboard the Wunder sitting in the entry plugs doing nothing while the ship wasn't in combat, but in a way it reminded him of the sync tests he and the other pilots used to take at NERV back in the old days. It was actually easier, as he and Rei didn't actually have to focus on synchronizing, as allowing the Eva to idle at around ten percent was perfectly sufficient for WILLE's needs when not in combat. And now that repairs had been completed, the Wunder could always land in the water and motor around on their nuclear generators to allow for the occasional break. According to Doctor Akagi, prolonged durations immersed in LCL was something she wanted to avoid, so they couldn't spend more than five hours in the air at a time. That was the price, it seemed, for being able to travel at supersonic speeds.

And at least Shinji wasn't alone in there. The long durations within the entry plug afforded him some time to help Rei get reacquainted with her new surroundings, and remind her of her old life. Much of the memories she had with him in Tokyo-3 were intact, but there was a disconnect somewhere that seemed to be preventing the emotional impact of most of the memories. He would mention a memory, and most of the time, she would just passively acknowledge it. Or perhaps, that was just Rei being Rei.

The thing that reassured him was that he would only have to remind her of a memory once, and she would retain it. She was slowly building herself back up to where she had been all those years ago. And there were a few memories that Shinji had brought up that seemed to have a positive effect on her. The visit to the aquarium in particular had brought a smile to her face.

That had given him an idea for later.

"Thank you for your assistance, Lieutenant Commander Ibuki!" Shinji said congenially as he bowed his head towards Maya as she strutted impatiently along the catwalk past them, Rei climbing out of the entry plug after him.

The older brunette's features darkened slightly as she paused in her step to peer back at him.

"Let's not stand on ceremony here," she wrinkled her nose. "Neither one of us is here because we want to be. We can just leave it at that."

Shinji withered a little at that. He had just been trying to be polite.

"Asuka…that is, Captain Shikinami…" he started, looking away sheepishly. "She told me that I needed to better adhere to WILLE's code of conduct. So I thought-"

"What?" Maya interrupted him, a cold expression on her face. "You think a bit of kowtowing is going to make us forget what you did, Shinji?"

Shinji lowered his eyes, his brow furrowed. He just couldn't seem to get over this hurdle with anyone.

"I'm just…" he murmured, sounding a little frustrated. "I'm just trying to move forward! I can't linger on my mistakes forever. What else am I suppose to do?"

Maya gritted her teeth in irritation. "You want to know _I_ think you should do!? I think you ought to-!"

Shinji tensed, expecting further reproach, but none came. Instead, Lieutenant Commander took a breath, as if realizing how unprofessional she was being.

"Nevermind," she said, in a much more moderate tone. "You're both dismissed."

"But…Lieutenant Commander…" Shinji began.

"I said dismissed!" Maya barked angrily.

Shinji pursed his lips sullenly as he watched the Lieutenant Commander march down the catwalk and out of the core area, leaving him and Rei alone with Unit 01's massive head peering down at them from within its confines of the bright red ship's core, technicians scurrying all about them, performing post-operational maintenance and flight calibrations.

"Ikari…" Rei murmured, when he did not speak or move for a while.

She too still wore her DSS choker, a constant reminder that they were still prisoners.

Shinji turned to her, putting on the friendliest smile he could muster, though he knew how insincere it must have looked.

"I have an idea, Ayanami," he smiled, even as he still felt like crying. "Let's go have dinner together. The mess hall should still be open."

Rei's eyes seemed to light up at that. "Like…like what we did at the aquarium?"

"Exactly!" Shinji said, starting forward along the catwalk towards the black and yellow caution-striped exits. "Well, the food's not going to be as good…or, like anything resembling food, but…at least there won't be any meat."

Rei nodded, the ghost of a smile appearing on her face. "I…I would like that…"

Shinji's smile became a bit more genuine. Rei Q had not even known the meaning of the word 'like.' Maybe there was hope for this Rei after all.

"Good!" he nodded in exaggerated exuberance. "Let's just change out of these plug suits, and then we can head over to the mess hall."

Rei nodded as she followed along. "Ok…"

Shinji's mood brightened. He had not been able to spend much of his off-time with Rei as he had wanted to because she was usually testing with Dr. Akagi. Most of the time they shared was in the entry plug of Unit 01. But now, the Doctor was otherwise occupied at Outpost Zion, leaving the two of them a little downtime.

It was not a short trek from the core to the pilot bunks, but the time went by quickly as Shinji filled it with more reminiscing about the old days.

"It was kind of frightening, actually," he mused. "You and Asuka both had so many cuts on her your hands! No one had a clue what you were doing, least of all me."

Rei nodded as she followed him down the corridor towards the bunks. "We…never got to eat dinner with your father?"

Shinji shook his head somberly. "No. But the gesture really meant a lot to me. It made me really happy."

Something in Rei's mind seemed to click. "Eating together…makes you happy."

"Well, I like to think so at any rate," Shinji shrugged. "Not everyone may agree, but most of the time…"

He paused in his step, and Rei blinked in confusion as his words trailed off.

"Ikari?"

Shinji had stopped walking. He had stopped talking. He was barely breathing.

They had made it to the bunk area. Just outside his own bunk, actually. And Shinji was completely frozen in place, his eyes wide as saucers.

Rei followed his gaze to the front of his door, appearing confused.

"I…do not understand…" she asked, naively. "Are you needed somewhere?"

Shinji was unable to answer. All he could do was stand there, with a terrified look on his face, quivering as a multitude of emotions overtook him.

Scrawled across his door, in bright red paint, were two words:

**GET OUT!**

* * *

Outpost Zion was WILLE's largest base of operations, but its resources, at least when it came to Evangelion technology, was sparse at best. Without access to the vast amounts of government funding they had at NERV, Ritsuko and her team had to scrape by with what they had. And when it came to synchronization testing, there were no test plugs available to them. Instead, they had to use the actual entry plug that would be going into the Evangelion upon its completion. The entry plug currently in use was erected on stilts and wired up to the ad hoc MAGI super-computer system integrated into the outpost, which Ritsuko had recreated to the best of her ability with that resources were available. It paled in comparison to the real thing, but she had a fairly robust system in place, and with it, she had been able to fabricate not one but _two_ dual-pilot entry plugs. The former of which now resided in the Wunder's core, allowing Shinji and Rei to bring the beast to activational readiness, the latter of which now contained Captain Asuka Shikinami and Mari Makinami, both wearing plug suits and immersed in LCL, synchronizing for what would hopefully be the activation of a brand new type of Eva.

"Something on your mind, dear?" Mari tilted her head back to peer up at Asuka, who was seated above and behind her in the entry plug.

Asuka wrinkled her nose. "No. Shut up."

The sync testing had been going on for most of the day. It was actually a multitude of tests strung together, leaving the pilots with several periods of downtime in the entry plugs, with little else to do but pester each other. By the time the afternoon rolled around, Asuka was really wishing she had found some way to swipe the DSS trigger that Ritsuko had tuned to Mari's shock collar.

"Jeez, I don't believe you!" Asuka groaned after a long period of silence in which she just _knew_ Mari had spent the duration of with that annoying cat-like grin on her face. "Does _nothing_ faze you? How could anyone be _this_ nonchalant about turning their back on all of humanity!?"

"Don't be such a drama queen, Princess," Mari rolled her eyes. "I haven't turned my back on anyone. Everything I've done has been for the benefit of WILLE."

"And what is 'WILLE' to you, exactly?" Asuka demanded. "Some day-care center that doesn't give a shit about protocol? What if that NERV clone had actually managed to destroy the ship, huh!? Would you still have that high and mighty attitude if all of us had ended up smashed into bits at the bottom of the ocean?"

"So, it's my attitude that bothers you?" Mari asked, thoughtfully.

"You're missing the point!" Asuka blared. "God, you're so aggravating! It's like you don't ever take anything seriously!"

There was a short pause while Mari seemed to mull that over.

"Yeah, well…" Mari said, for the first time a hint of sincerity in her voice. "You're not exactly the easiest to work with either, Princess."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Asuka blurted, sarcastically. "I'll be sure to mind my manners next time we're in the middle of a fucking war-zone! And besides, I don't need this kind of lip from some traitor like you!"

"I'm _not_ a-!" Mari began, before cutting herself off. "Oh, forget it! You're not interested in listening to anything I have to say! Your mind was made up about me from day one!"

"Show me _one_ smidgen of evidence to prove me wrong, and I will spin on a fucking dime!" Asuka retorted. "But you can't, because you never take anything seriously enough to ever give a straight answer! At least, _I_ can never tell if you're ever being serious enough, because you've always got that fucking _smirk_ on your face! You always look like you're plotting some nefarious scheme of some sort! So _excuse_ me for jumping to conclusions! Especially when they turn out to be _true_!"

"I _told_ you!" Mari shouted back, her cool demeanor beginning to crack. "I'm _not_-!"

"Pilots!" Ritsuko voice sounded over the intercoms as her face appeared on the screen before the both of them. "We're beginning our next test. I would ask that you refrain from arguing and concentrate on the task at hand until the test is over."

Both girls harrumphed in acknowledgement, and turned their attention to concentrating on synchronizing, neither one of them satisfied with the other.

* * *

Shinji sat across from Rei in the mess hall. It wasn't very crowded, as about half of the Wunder's crew had disembarked to see their families. Outpost Zion had an array of long range sensors, and WILLE's naval escort was spread out across the coastline, keeping an ear to the ground. The two systems would, in theory, give the Wunder ample warning should an attack come, and give the crew time to return to their posts. Still, the ship was kept at minimal operational readiness, which most of the currently stationed crew had no problem accommodating for, as the remainder that had stayed aboard _had_ no families to return to. Some had simply been loners, but the overwhelming margin seemed to be those survivors who had lost loved ones in the last fourteen years, either during Third Impact, or the ensuing angelic purge that had transpired afterward.

Shinji may not have had more than a high school level of education, but even he was smart enough to realize how many of the Wunder's crew must have placed the blame for their families' deaths on him.

The two of them sat across from each other at an otherwise unoccupied table in an uncomfortable silence, scraping at their nutrient paste in abject disinterest. They had changed into their WILLE uniforms, with Rei's matching his own. On the far side of the room, two groups of people in WILLE officer uniforms sitting at two separate tables cast surreptitious glances in their direction, none of them looking all too friendly.

"Are you…not enjoying this?" Rei asked, sounding worried.

Shinji looked up from his plate, blinking away his reverie, still feeling the eyes of an unfriendly crowd looming all around him.

"No, no, I am…" he assured her, though he did not sound at all sure of himself. "I'm just…distracted."

"By that message on your door?" Rei asked, bluntly.

Shinji winced, confirming her query.

"I am sorry…" Rei apologized. "Perhaps…the message was not intended to be hostile?"

Shinji sighed, shaking his head. "A message in red that says 'get out?' The intent is pretty clear."

"Then perhaps…" Rei pondered, clearly grasping at straws. "Perhaps the message was not intended for you."

"Who else would it be for?" Shinji demanded, impatiently.

Rei looked away.

"…Myself?"

Shinji looked up, his expression softening. "No…Ayanami, they…they have _far_ more reason to hate me than you. _You_, you're a mystery. They might be _scared_ of you, but they don't _know_ if you're a threat. Me…"

He lowered his eyes once again.

"Me, they have every reason to hate…"

The corners of Rei's mouth curved downward into a frown, but she otherwise had no reaction to give.

"Shinji!" a voice sounded from behind him.

Shinji turned around to see Sakura carrying a lunch tray and standing behind him, a polite smile on her face.

"Ayanami," she inclined her head to address the other girl. "Do the two of you mind if I join you?"

Shinji cast a nervous glance at the other two tables that had been giving them the evil eye. None of them seemed to be paying them much heed at the moment, but he still could not shake the fear that by associating with the two of them, Sakura would be putting herself at risk.

The Lieutenant seemed to read his mind as she saw where his eyes had fallen.

"Oh, don't worry about them," she assured, dismissively. "They won't bother us."

"Are you sure?" Shinji asked, suspiciously.

"Positive!" Sakura chimed. "I've worked with them for years!"

"Join us then, Second Lieutenant Suzuhara," Rei said politely, sounding stiff but sincere. "Ikari informs me that dining together with others can bring happiness. So…I believe the term is, 'more and merry?"

"'The more the merrier,'" Sakura corrected with a smile, sitting down besides her. "And I couldn't agree more."

"Ah," Rei nodded in acknowledgement. "Dr. Akagi has been coaching me on how to better mingle with WILLE's crew so as to avoid such situations as Ikari finds himself in."

Sakura blinked in confusion. "What…situation would that be?"

"Ayanami!" Shinji winced, helplessly. "We don't need to involve the Lieutenant in this."

"No, I want to know!" Sakura insisted. "What's wrong, Shinji?"

"It's nothing, Sakura," Shinji concentrated on his food.

"Ikari has received a threatening message on his door," Rei reported simply, responding to the order from the higher ranking officer.

Sakura's expression fell. "Oh. You saw that already? Damn…I was hoping I could get that cleaned up before you made it back to your bunk."

Shinji's nose wrinkled. Had Sakura been trying to detain them while a cleanup crew scrubbed his door? Suddenly, Sakura's appearance here didn't seem all too coincidental.

"I don't need you to protect me from the truth, Sakura," he said, grumpily. "If that's the opinion that everyone on this ship has, then so be it."

"Shinji…" Sakura's eyes softened. "You shouldn't have to live in fear like that. Not from your fellow crew-members."

Shinji scoffed. "I'm an Eva pilot. Living in fear is what we do."

"But Shinji…" Sakura shook her head. "You're one of us now!"

Shinji just shook his head.

"I may wear the uniform, Sakura, but I don't think I'll _ever_ be one of you. Not anymore."

Sakura pursed her lips in a look of genuine sadness. "Shinji…"

"I gotta go…" he said, getting up from his seat.

Rei started to rise as well, but Sakura put a hand on her arm and shook her head, silently. Rei did not quite understand, but the Second Lieutenant still outranked both of them, so she was obliged to do as she said. Still, Rei's eyes followed Shinji, as the ghosts of several emotions flitted around in the back of her mind; concern, compassion, hope, belonging…but perhaps one stood out above all.

Fear.

* * *

As Shinji made his way towards his bunk, he tried not to make eye contact with anyone he passed. It was late evening, and most of the crew had either left the ship, or hunkered down for the night, whether that be to drink and play cards, or actually get in some shut-eye before the next inevitable emergency. As a result, there weren't that many passers-by in the hallway between the mess hall and his bunk.

But he was aware of one individual that seemed to be following behind him, despite turning down a multitude of corners on the way.

Shinji picked up his pace, but he could hear his pursuer's steps pick up as well. He accelerated to a run and made a dash for the pilot barracks, eyes widening as fear overtook him. His bunk was just around the corner ahead, but the footsteps from behind were getting closer. Panting for breath, Shinji hurried around the corner to his hallway, but he bumped right into a large WILLE crew member with short red hair whose girth filled most of the corridor, and Shinji fell over onto his backside.

"Sorry, shrimp…" the big man crossed his arms, staring down at him. "Didn't see you there."

Shinji pushed himself backwards instinctively, staring up in astonishment at how _large_ the guy was. But his attention suddenly turned to his pursuer coming from the right, a wiry young man with short black hair and a cold, hard scowl on his face. Shinji recognized the two of them from one of the other tables in the mess hall, and he began to panic as he rolled onto his front, scrambling to his feet to dash down the only remaining hall. But he felt someone tackle him to the ground from behind, and he let out a grunt of pain.

"Where do you think _you're_ going, you little punk!?" a vicious sounding voice hissed in his ear as the stronger teen pulled Shinji to his feet.

"Let me go!" Shinji grunted in pain, tugging at the arms that ensnared him, scrambling his legs for purchase as he tried to escape. Then the wind was suddenly knocked out of him by a sudden punch to the gut, and he was seeing stars.

"That was for my brother!" the younger man shouted angrily, bitterness and anger seeping from his voice.

Another punch followed, this one knocking Shinji in the jaw, sending him staggering back into the bigger man's arms, who grabbed him and held him in place.

"And that!" the black haired officer growled in anger. "That was for my sister, you son of a bitch!"

In spite of his current predicament, Shinji was suddenly reminded of his first encounter with Toji, after what had happened with Sakura. He doubted very much, however, that this particular encounter would end there.

"You've got a lot to answer for, shrimp," the big man's menacing voice said behind him, as he held Shinji in a full nelson, leaving his body and face completely undefended.

Shinji tried blinking to clear his vision, but the wind was suddenly knocked out of him again by another gut punch.

"My family!" the younger man shouted, eyes red with rage, before knocking Shinji in jaw. "My friends!" he shouted again, and following it up with a left hook that took him in the cheekbone. "My _entire_ hometown!"

Shinji grunted and choked in pain, his lip bleeding and his face bruising from the assault.

"Rrrng!" Shinji suddenly gasped, doubling over in pain as the older teen brought his knee up into Shinji's groin.

"What _right_ do you have!?" the boy demanded maniacally. "What right do you have to walk around freely after _they_ were all left to die!?"

Shinji spat up mouthful of blood, his vision still clouded by stars as blood dripped from his nose and mouth.

"Ugh…" he groaned in pain, finally managing to lift his head. "I'm…"

The boy grabbed him by the hair, yanking his face up to meet his.

"_What_!?" he demanded, furiously. "What do you _possibly_ have to say for yourself!?"

"Ugh!" Shinji grimaced, the taste of copper filling his mouth. "I...I'm not…I'm not a threat to you! As long as I've…got this…_thing_ on…"

The older teen's cold, dark colored eyes fell on the choker around his neck.

"This!?" he grunted, unimpressed. "Is _this_ thing supposed to make me _happy_? This piece of shit!?"

The boy hooked a finger beneath the choker, his knuckle driving into Shinji's jugular, causing him to choke.

"What good does _this_ do me, huh!?" he demanded. "What do I care if WILLE's got you collared!?"

"Ulgh!" Shinji coughed in pain as the boy's grip around his choker aptly caused it to choke him. "Hnng…stop!"

The young man snorted as a wicked smirk appeared on his face. "Hey…this thing has a fail-safe, right?"

Shinji blinked in confusion as the the boy began to twist his finger and the choker along with it, causing it to tighten around his neck, and Shinji began to panic as his airway began to close off.

"What…?" he coughed in alarm. "What are you…doing…?"

The young man leaned closer to glare into Shinji's eyes. "Wonder how long it'll take to set this thing off?"

Shinji's eyes suddenly widened in terror as he realized what he was trying to do. An image of Kaworu's smiling face appeared to him, as the choker around his neck triggered and sent a dozen, ruby-red spires shooting into his neck, before showering the entry plug with the bits and remains that used to be his head.

Shinji began to thrash and kick wildly with the last of his strength.

"Stop!" he shouted desperately in a raspy voice. "_Stop_!_"_

"Hey, Lee…" the big man said behind Shinji, still holding firm. "Do we _really_ wanna go that far, man?"

"Shut up, Jim!" Lee growled like a vicious dog. "I want to see him squirm like the rat he is!"

"No! Please!" Shinji whimpered in a tremulous voice as he struggled, tears running down his face. "Don't…"

Lee seemed to delight at Shinji's fear.

"What's the matter, shrimp?" he demanded. "Don't wanna die? Do you think my _family_ wanted to die!? Do you think _anyone_ that you killed wanted to die!? Do you think begging and pleading saved _them_!?"

His finger continued to twist, and the hard metal polymer in the choker twisted with it, and Shinji wasn't sure what would give out first, his larynx or the the choker's fail-safe.

"No…don't…" Shinji wheezed with the last of his oxygen, tears mingling with blood as it dripped down his face. "Stop…please…"

That's when an ear-splittingly loud voice filled the hallway.

"_Ten-HUT_!"

All Shinji knew at that point was coming face-first with the floor as both officers dropped him, standing up straight.

"Captain…!" Lee managed, completely taken aback.

"C-Captain Shikinami!" Jim blurted in fear.

Shinji was still lying face first on the floor, gasping for breath and shaking in fear. But even then, he had been able to make out that name.

_Asuka…?_

He heard the sound of loud, determined footsteps fast approaching them, and managed to tilt his head up just in time to see Asuka in her officer's uniform marching down the corridor, both Jim and Lee standing at attention.

"Captain!" Lee began. "I can explain-!"

Lee was cut off, however, when Asuka promptly whirled and sent the heel of her boot into the side of his head, driving it into the wall!

"Ungh!" Lee cried out in pain.

"C-C-Captain!" Jim stammered in disbelief as he watched Lee fall to the floor, completely dazed.

Asuka's cold glare fell on the other soldier, and she seemed almost casual as she grabbed the big man by the wrist, twisting and causing him to double forward in pain. She then put a hand on his shoulder and sent his head slamming into the wall as well, sending him falling over backwards, bruised and bleeding.

Asuka then reached down and grabbed Lee by the collar and tossed him like a rag doll, propped up partway onto Jim's bulky torso, before planting her foot onto Lee's chest and driving him down onto Jim's stomach, causing them both to grunt in pain.

She peered down at them with a deadly serious expression on her face.

"Assaulting a fellow crew-member is a serious offense, Privates," she said, her voice merciless and unfeeling.

Lee gritted his teeth, a goose-egg welling up on his forehead.

"He's not a-!"

Lee's breath caught in his throat as Asuka drove her foot into his sternum.

"What was that, Private?" Asuka glared, menacingly. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

She did not ease off of him, and Lee grunted in pain.

"N-no ma'am!"

Asuka exhaled through her nose as she looked at the two of them the way someone would look at piles of garbage littering the street.

"I catch you two doing something like this again, and it's be a month in the brig," she growled slowly, a look of unmistakeable malice on her face. "And I can assure you, you'll both be needing stitches before you get there."

Shinji blinked in disbelief at what he was seeing. Was Asuka actually…sticking up for him?

She pressed her foot down harder, causing both men to yelp.

"Do I make myself _clear_?" she demanded in a cruel, breathy voice.

"Y-Yes ma'am!" Jim blubbered, wincing pitifully.

"Understood, ma'am!" Lee gritted his teeth, eyes clenched in pain.

"Good," Asuka sneered, taking her foot off of them. "Dismissed."

The two of them hurriedly got to their feet, both seemed to need to support themselves against the bulkhead as they filed out of the pilot bunk area.

Asuka's expression was unreadable as she stepped over to where Shinji lay on the floor.

He blinked up at her, bleeding and bruised, too many emotions welling up inside him to properly articulate anything. Shame, fear, gratitude, confusion, and most of all, pure and simple awe. Asuka had dispatched the two of them in a manner of _seconds_!

"Clean yourself up…" she grunted, dismissively as she stepped past him, not bothering to help him to his feet. "You look like a mess."

Shinji blinked as he watched her march down the hallways towards her bunk.

"Asuka…" he grunted, face bloody, as he slowly managed to get to his feet, his knees still shaking.

"Do me a favor," she commanded simply, not pausing until she reached her door. "And forget that any of this just happened."

Shinji was leaning against the wall, limping and blinking at her in disbelief.

"Oh…" he muttered, licking the blood from his lips. "Ok…"

He could only watch her as she pressed the switch by the front of her door, letting it hiss open.

"And watch your back, will you?" she said, waiting outside her door, seemingly unwilling to meet his gaze. "I may not be there to save your ass next time."

Shinji blinked, even more confused than ever, as she disappeared through the door, letting it whoosh shut behind her.

* * *

Ritsuko stared at her monitors with a dark expression on her face. One one screen was Unit 01's energy output, which provided a pretty solid indicator of its activation status. The other displayed a security feed around the exterior of the pilot barracks.

"Dr. Akagi!" one of her lab technicians called out, a squirrely looking young man who would have made a promising scientist if he could just get his head out of the clouds. "Unit 01's energy readings have just spiked!"

Ritsuko nodded absently, taking a puff from her cigarette.

"Nothing to concern yourself with, Sonoda," she exhaled absently. "Just running a few tests."

Sonoda stared out the viewport at the core. He could still hear the power cells cycling down.

"But-"

"I said," Ritsuko threw a hard look in the technician's direction, "It's just a test."

Sonoda blinked in intimidation, before slowly nodding.

"Y-yes ma'am…" he muttered, returning to his station.

Ritsuko sighed and turned her attention back to her screens. She had been worried for a second, but it appeared that Asuka had intervened in time. She didn't want to imagine what would have happened if she hadn't.

She took another drag from her cigarette before mashing it into her ashtray.

They were running out of time.

* * *

To be continued…


	12. Chapter 11

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 11

* * *

Some three hundred JA Heavy Armor units were lined up outside of Lilin Outpost Zion, which for all practical purposes represented WILLE's entire infantry. Overhead, the AAA Wunder loomed like an ever-present carnival float, while WILLE's naval escort, consisting of what remained of the U.N. battle fleet after Third Impact and everything that came after, lay out at sea just off the coast. There were sirens sounding all around, as the dome-like AT barrier surrounding the compound lifted at the base to allow the ground troops through.

Leading the platoons of JA Heavy Armor were two distinctly colored units, one with red trim, and the other with pink.

Asuka gritted her teeth uneasily. She was _not_ comfortable with Mari being out here in her own suit, but the Colonel had insisted. Misato had not appeared any happier about it than Asuka was, and for some reason, she and Ritsuko seemed incapable of making eye contact for the entire conversation. But the Captain's mind appeared to have been made up. Two manned units were better that one, and this was an emergency. When Asuka had protested, Misato had simply handed her the DSS trigger to Mari's shock collar.

"Don't abuse it," had been her instructions.

Asuka blew a strand of hair out of her face. She was _not_ a fan of these clunky pieces of machinery, but Units 02 and 08 were nowhere near ready for combat, and WILLE's fleet had detected an advancing force larger than any they had seen before. So the two of them had been ushered into their own Jet Alone units and sent out onto the battlefield to coordinate the automated troops. So not only did Asuka have to marshal an army of mindless drones against an angelic threat, but she also had to keep an eye on the potential threat that Mari represented out here.

No, Asuka was _not_ comfortable with any of this at all.

Mari, on the other hand, seemed to be so elated that she had decided to take the opportunity to _sing_.

"_When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah~! Hurrah~!_" she piped. "_We'll give him a hea-arty welcome then, Hurrah~! Hurrah~!_"

"Would you shut _up_?" Asuka demanded in irritation over the intercom. As skilled and adaptable as she was, they were still at a massive disadvantage in these machines. Nuclear powered, flimsy and delicate compared to the layers and layers of special armor worn by an Eva, and no AT field whatsoever! The thing was about as dexterous as a brick, and she while she was familiar with the controls, she just wasn't nearly as accustomed to piloting a Jet Alone as she was her Eva. She wasn't even wearing her _plug suit_ for crying out loud - she was still wearing her officer's uniform! The _last_ thing she needed was Mari serenading her over the radio!

"Sorry, Princess!" Mari chuckled in the corner of her screen. "Just getting a little excited!"

"Don't see what's to be so excited about," Asuka groaned, as she tallied up the distribution of the JA units under her command. "And besides, aren't you British?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Mari wrinkled her nose.

"Well, isn't that an _American_ song?" Asuka posited.

"Yeah, but it's a _marching_ song!" Mari smiled like a satisfied cat. "Usually we're flying solo missions! This is the first time we've been out with a platoon under our command! It's exciting!"

Asuka groaned again. This was a little more than she had signed up for. It had only been a day since the Wunder had conducted its first official field test under the feckless stewardship of the Brat and the Nerv Clone, and they were already under attack! In a little under ten minutes, they would be flooded with Nemeses and God knew whatever else NERV decided to throw at them, now that they were all in one place like this. Usually, the Wunder was kept mobilized to avoid this very situation, but in this case, they needed Zion's resources to repair their Eva units. Neither of them had ever been so extensively damaged before. So it was up to _her_ to make sure that the Nemesis Series or anything else didn't get too close to the base, and on top of that, to keep tabs on Mari in the event of any foul play.

Well then, she thought with bitter resolution, bring it on.

"_Oh, the men will cheer and the boys will shout!_" Mari continued to sing. "_The la-adies the-ey will all turn out! And we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home~!_"

Asuka let out another sigh.

"Ugh…whatever."

* * *

Shinji gripped his control yokes tightly, gritting his teeth as he stared at the oncoming force that loomed over the horizon. No less than a dozen Nemesis Series, all intertwined in a bright red cocoon of energy. They were also getting reports of something big moving in from the ocean, but as of yet, had been unable to identify what it was. It was too small to be a Nemesis, but wasn't displaying a blue waveform pattern that an Angel exhibited. Unfortunately, Outpost Zion's long range sensors were dependent on whatever WILLE naval forces off the coast were able to detect, which meant that they would have to wait for it to make landfall before they would know more.

"Do not fear, Ikari," he heard Rei say in the seat before him. "I will protect you."

Shinji let out a sigh, as the ghost of a smile appeared on his face. Working with Rei seemed to be a constant exercise in nostalgia. Every other word she said reminded him of days long past.

A doctor had seen to his injuries after the attack in the hallway the other day. The black eye had mostly faded after a few days, but he still had a scar splitting the left side of his bottom lip. Rei had been shaken to learn about his attack - at least, as shaken as Rei ever got about anything - and had seemingly taken it upon herself to be his personal guardian from then on out. It was a little embarrassing, having her constantly following him and asking about his health over the course of the day, but he could not deny the safety of moving as a group. And if he was perfectly honest with himself, he did find the concern rather touching.

Of course, Rei could not be with him all the time, but Sakura also seemed to have taken pains to ensure that at least one of them was with him at all times to dissuade further attacks. While the Captain seemed content to allow the entire ship to be his own personal hell, Misato had already demonstrated that she was aware of his value to WILLE. It seemed foolish to risk losing one of the only keys they had to activating the Wunder's core or setting Unit 01 off again with another perceived threat like it had with Outpost Naraka. Given how much of WILLE's operational methods had been lifted from NERV, Shinji supposed it was likely that there were security teams in place throughout the ship, prepared to move in at the push of a button, should anything serious happen.

Still, it was strange that WILLE would allow him to move about unescorted after what had happened. Perhaps their intention had precisely been for Sakura or Rei to step in and take up the mantle themselves. Neither had mentioned an explicit order one way or the other. Perhaps, it was some strange passive-aggressive power play on the Captain's part, ensuring that Shinji was ultimately safe, but taking no visible action to ensure it, ensuring that he still felt the hostility around him. Either way, he couldn't help shake the feeling that someone in charge had deliberately let the attack happen.

It was a fucked up world indeed where Shinji actually felt safest within the entry plug.

"We can protect each other," Shinji assured her. "At least, in here we can. That's one thing I like about this arrangement at least."

"Yes," Rei nodded in agreement. "Here, we are one."

Shinji wasn't sure how to respond to that. He was used to her saying things like that, and he was used to them making him feel awkward, but for different reasons than they did now. He knew he cared about Ayanami, but ever since Fuyutsuki had revealed her origins, there had always been this uneasiness lingering in the back of his mind about her connection to his mother. On the one hand, he did not need further social stigma from whatever moral gray area his connection to Ayanami represented. But on the other, it was not like he could invoke any further ire from his peers, so he might as well be with someone he cared for.

The question he hadn't yet answered was how far he was willing to take that connection. He was naturally timid and skittish when it came to physical attachment, and that was under the _best_ of circumstances. As it was now, he was, true to form, completely unsure of himself.

So, as per usual, he simply avoided the problem, and resolved simply to continue protecting her wherever and however he could, and deal with the other questions later.

And that was what he had thought _before_ Asuka had stuck her neck out for him last night. Until that point, he had all but lost hope of her ever caring about him again. But after that moment, he didn't know what to expect. He felt that he owed Asuka even more than he owed Rei. At least Rei had not been suffering all these years. At least, he hoped she hadn't.

And then there was Mari to consider. Shinji couldn't make heads or tails of that girl. And considering who she was being compared to, that was saying something.

And if Sakura had been any friendlier, he might have even imagined…

"Shinji?"

Captain Katsuragi's face appeared before him.

"Gah!" he started, flailing out of her reverie. "Captain! Wh-what is it!?"

Misato looked unamused. "You weren't answering."

Shinji blinked suddenly. "Oh, uh…what?"

"We're in position," Misato declared simply. "Are you ready?"

"Y-Yes ma'am!" he blurted, a little too quickly.

The Captain raised an eyebrow. "You don't _sound_ very ready."

Shinji looked away, awkwardly, feeling like he had been caught with his pants down. "I, uh…"

"Get it together, Shinji," Misato scoffed. "We're counting on you to be our eye in the sky here."

"Y-Yes, Ma'am!" he exclaimed.

Misato exhaled. "Alright. The enemy is still on approach. We've got twelve Nemesis Series in the air, plus something big about to make landfall. It'll breach the surface in T-minus twenty, so stand by."

At her command, an additional screen displaying one of the base's long range sensor display appeared besides Misato's screen before Shinji. The screen displayed a rocky beach, looking out across the ocean at the surrounding fleet. The display moved to the left and then the right, as if the camera along the outer perimeter was scanning, until it resolved upon an ominous looking bulge in the water. As the camera focused and zoomed in to the approaching bulge, the water around it began to bubble and froth as it neared the beach.

"T-minus ten…" Misato warned.

Shinji clenched his teeth as he watched the approaching menace. This definitely felt like the beginning of an Angel battle, the way the target was approaching from the ocean. But unfortunately, unlike Tokyo-3, Outpost Zion was just a hop, skip and a jump from the coastline. Which meant that they had about a minute before whatever was coming at them revealed itself and having to fend it off.

"Three…two…one…"

The bulge of water suddenly exploded outward as a head emerged from ocean, following quickly by a humanoid body, slogging through the water until it had surfaced completely, whereupon it accelerated into a run, stepping over the outer perimeter cameras, which swiveled around to watch it vanish over the horizon in the direction of Outpost Zion.

Shinji stared in disbelief at what he had seen. The brief glimpse had been more than enough. He had recognized the shape instantly.

So had Misato.

"The Eva Series…"

* * *

The unit closely resembled the Mark.06, with a single visor-like eye, twin crests sweeping back from either side of its face, giving it's head a triangular look, and a long frontal horn not unlike Unit 01 that was split down the middle. Unlike Unit 06, however, this Eva was all grays and greens, and wielded no weapon.

As the Eva made a beeline for Outpost Zion, the Nemesis Series began to accelerate as well, forming up over the Eva unit, clearly attacking in unison.

Lieutenant Commander Ibuki bit her lip. Why would NERV plainly announce they were coming by having the Nemesis Series reveal themselves long before the attack? The delay had given WILLE plenty of time to prepare for the assault, though the odds were still not in their favor with this new unit on the field. Was the Commander of NERV really so confident, or was there some other angle that the enemy was playing at?

Either way, Maya had been given the role of Operations Director for WILLE's ground forces, which meant that she now commanded over three hundred JA Heavy Armor units, and was responsible for coordinating with Asuka and Mari, the latter of whose presence on the battlefield still baffled her. And she was determined to use every resource available to her to keep their home safe.

"Jet Alone forces, in position!" she reported. "Ready to intercept!"

The bridge of the Wunder offered her the perfect view of the battlefield below. Usually, Maya's role was to oversee the launch bay, but for this particular battle, someone with experience in mobilized armor deployment was needed, and the rest of the bridge crew was otherwise occupied with operating the Wunder.

Maya had been eager to step up.

"Asuka!" Maya boomed. "All artillery units, open fire!"

"Roger!" the redhead exclaimed.

An upward hail of small cannon fire concentrated around the cluster of Nemeses as each of the JA units below turned their guns to the sky and fired. The massive red cloud that was the energy cocoon around them did not seem to waver from the assault, but it did seem to get their attention as the cloud began to descend upon the ground forces.

"Mari!" Maya ordered, turning her attention to the Eva Series. "Move kamikaze units to intercept!"

"Roger!" the other girl responded.

Another platoon of JA Heavy Armor units began to tackle the approaching Eva, throwing themselves on top of it before exploding all at once. The Eva barely responded to the assault, but each successive explosion did seem to slow it down.

"We're not making a dent in these shields!" Asuka exclaimed.

"Same here!" Mari added. "The Eva's just shrugging us off!"

Maya gritted her teeth. The Wunder was contributing as much as it could with it's AT cannons, but the JA units were being wiped out by the dozens! Though that had always been their intended purpose in this battle. They needn't defeat the enemy, just wear them down enough to allow the Wunder's S2 cannons to finish them off. The only fear was that there would not be enough to slow them down. Already, the Nemeses had descended upon the base, hammering away at the AT barrier surrounding the outpost, as JA units continued to badger the beasts.

But it wasn't the Nemesis Series that concerned Misato.

It was that Eva.

"Alright," Misato ordered. "Prepare to transfer control to Unit 01."

As the bridge crew scrambled into action, Misato brought up the feed to inside Unit 01's entry plug.

"Ok, Shinji," Misato frowned. "The ball's in your court now. Just try not to screw this up."

Shinji's uneasy face just nodded once.

"Yes ma'am…"

Misato nodded, watching the relays in front of her display the ship's status, until the feeds had moved entirely over to the Eva.

"I have control!" Shinji announced in a determined voice.

"S2 cannons, fire!" Misato hollered.

The Wunder suddenly let loose with twin optical beams from the beast's face, which impacted the Nemeses shields, before dissipating.

"Again!" Misato ordered. "Fire!"

The optical blasts beat down on the Nemeses' cocoon, but the red energy simply resisted.

"There's too many of them!" Shigeru reported. "Their AT Fields have conjoined! The S2 cannons aren't powerful enough to penetrate them! We need to break them up!"

"Roger that!" Maya responded from below the helm. "Pilots! Move in!"

"On it!" Asuka responded from below.

"Aye ma'am!" Mari chimed in.

Maya wrinkled her nose and turned her attention back to the Eva Series, which was currently in the process of mowing through a horde of autonomous JA units. They were doing a good job slowing it down, but the tactic would not last forever. Even as their nuclear power cells detonated as a pre-programmed last ditch effort, the Eva Series' armor and AT Field was on a whole different level from the Nemeses.

The Wunder was still focused on keeping the Nemesis Series from breaching the base's outer defenses, letting loose with AT and S2 cannon fire. It was only after an entire platoon of JA Heavy Armor units practically dog piled the swirling mass of red and gray, each one detonating with the equivalent of an N2 mine, that the Nemeses finally scattered.

"Now's our chance!" Captain Katsuragi cried out. "Shinji! Take them out!"

The Wunder's S2 cannons fired in rapid succession, each strike hitting home as, one by one, the Nemesis Series erupted into spires of brilliant red energy. In a matter of seconds, the Wunder had struck each individual Nemesis out of the sky.

"Nemesis Series neutralized, Captain!" Shigeru reported.

"Roger that," Misato nodded. "Now to deal with that Eva."

* * *

The gray green Eva Series had all but decimated the JA Heavy Armor force in its way. The surrounding countryside had been completely cleared of foliage in the ensuing nuclear blasts, leaving the earth charred and brown, the path between the Eva and the base all but clear.

All save for two lone Jet Alone units.

"Asuka, Mari," Maya's voice sounded over their intercoms. "The remaining JA units were thrown out of range in that last blast. The terrain is slowing them down and the nuclear fallout is throwing their navigation systems out of whack. They won't make it to your area before the Eva reaches the base!"

"In other words, we're on our own," Mari replied with a cocky smile.

"That's correct," Maya replied. "You have to stall it!"

"Understood, Lieutenant Commander!" Mari grinned.

Asuka just sighed. "Well, here we are. Piloting two effective pieces of junk against a full sized Eva, with its own AT Field and probably an S2 engine. It's wiped out about half our ground forces, and we are pretty much all that stands between _it_ and what amounts to the last bastion of humanity on the planet."

The Eva series turned its wide eyed visor towards them, a low rumbling growl emanating from its mouth.

"Well, it could be worse," Mari said casually. "It could be raining."

No sooner had she said that when the Eva was suddenly struck by the Wunder's twin optic cannons, causing the Eva to take a step back.

Asuka grinned. "I don't know about you, Four-Eyes, but that's the kind of rain I can get behind!"

The Eva Series turned its head skyward to peer back up at the Wunder.

Asuka suddenly had a sinking feeling in her gut, and banking on instinct, she charged forward, tackling the unit head on.

"Yahhh!"

If she had acted a second later, the Eva Series' own optical cannon would have struck the Wunder. At that range, the Wunder's AT Field was neutralizing the Eva Series, and the optical cannon would have probably knocked the warship out of the sky.

"Whew!" Mari whistled. "Good save there, Princess!"

Unfortunately, the save had cost Asuka her unit, as the Eva Series wrapped its arms around the clunky robot, its fingers digging into it before slowly turning it into core material.

"Crap!" Asuka grunted. "Got to eject!"

A red escape capsule jettisoned out of the JA unit's back, before the unit exploded. Now that its AT Field was neutralized, the blast was bound to be more effective, Asuka hoped. But as her escape capsule parachuted down some three kilometers away, she could see that her unit's sacrifice had merely charred the Eva Series' armor.

Asuka grit her teeth. This attack was just a test run for NERV to try out their new toy, she knew. They had been pestering WILLE with the Nemesis Series for years, but now it seemed they had whipped out the big guns. She also knew that, even if they made it through this attack, the number of attacks would only increase after this. JA units weren't going to cut it anymore. WILLE needed an Eva. And it needed an Eva pilot - two, if Dr. Akagi was correct - to get it running.

But before they could get either of those things, they had to survive this first attack with what they had, and so far, it was not going well at all. Their JA platoon had been reduced by half, it was already proving useless to throw any more of them at the Eva Series. That hadn't stopped her or Mari from trying though.

But it was up to the favored Four-Eyes now, she thought bitterly.

Asuka tightened her grip around the DSS trigger in her hand, staring at it hard with her good eye.

She really, really hoped that she wouldn't have to use it.

* * *

A/N: Inspiration for Mari's song comes from the ending theme to Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail.

Stay tuned.


	13. Chapter 12

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

A/N: Double chapter today. Got so long that I decided to split it into two. Because I'm anal like that.

* * *

Chapter 12

* * *

A battle raged outside the AT barriers of Lilin Outpost Zion.

An army of JA Heavy Armor units, three hundred strong, had been reduced by half, taking the dozen Nemesis Series with them. The surrounding terrain, mostly a rocky tundra lined with spruce trees, had been largely reduced to rubble in a last ditch kamikaze attack.

And standing defiantly, growling in rage, was the first of the Eva Series, the mass produced Evangelion type that resembled a green and brown Mark.06. After years of fending off attacks from the Mark.04 Nemesis Series, it appeared that NERV had decided to take off the kid gloves.

On the ground, between the Eva, and the outpost, was a single JA Heavy Armor unii, piloted by Makinami Mari, still wearing her WILLE uniform, with a DSS shock collar around her neck.

The AAA Wunder hovered defensively overhead. Shinji was firing the Wunder's optical cannon as much as he could, but each blast kicked up enough dust and debris that the Eva Series was obscured for a brief period after each blast, and each time it revealed itself, it was a few steps closer to the base.

On the ground, Mari was harassing the Eva as much as she could with her unit's pallet rifle, but her JA unit might as well have been a mosquito by comparison, but at least she was keeping the Eva from firing back at the Wunder.

"Cease fire, Shinji," Misato's face appeared on his screen. "We're not making enough of a dent in that thing. We need to try something else."

Shinji halted his barrage with a certain amount of relief, but also trepidation. Had he not been doing a good enough job?

"What do you want us to do then?" he asked.

Misato pursed her lip, before turning her eyes towards another corner of the screen, evidently to look at Rei's radio feed.

"Rei, can you maneuver the Wunder so that we're positioned directly in front of the Eva and pointed directly at it?"

Shinji could see Rei nodded in the seat below him. "Yes ma'am."

"Good," Misato said brusquely. "Then do it. Shinji, keep firing. Keep the pressure on. Slow it down as much as we can."

Both Shinji and Rei responded in unison.

"Yes ma'am!"

Misato nodded, and the feed switched off, but Shinji could still hear her voice over the intercom as he went back to the task of hitting the Eva with everything he had.

"Ritsuko," Misato's voice sounded. "Remember that experiment you were working on to weaponize the base's AT barrier?"

There was a pause as Shinji continued firing, with Mari's JA unit still dancing around the Eva with a surprising amount of dexterity.

"Captain, I don't think that's a good idea," Ritsuko voice sounded, distorted by transmitting through the radio on the bridge to Shinji's radio. "In order to do it, the entire base's AT barrier will need to come down."

"But it _does_ work?" Misato confirmed.

"Technically, but the entire base would be exposed in the process!"

"If this works, then it won't matter," Misato said simply.

"And if it doesn't?" Ritsuko demanded.

"Ritsuko, that AT barrier won't hold up against an Eva for long, and you know it," Misato said plainly. "Not even the Wunder's S2 cannons are making a dent in this thing. This is our last shot."

Shinji could imagine Ritsuko's expression on the other line as he continued to pummel the Eva, the Wunder descending to less than a hundred meters off the ground, facing the approaching Eva and slowly moving backwards as the Eva approached. But despite the situation, Shinji felt a strange feeling in his stomach that he hadn't felt for a while. A tingly sort of anticipation. This was starting to sound more like the Misato he knew!

"Fine," Ritsuko said finally. "I'll set it up. Give me five minutes to reorient the transistors."

"Five minutes?" Shinji thought out loud. "Captain, we don't _have_ five minutes!"

At the rate the Eva was advancing, with the Wunder's tail fast approaching the AT barrier, it felt like they barely had five _seconds_!

"We'll just have to make time then," Misato's face reappeared on the screen. "Rei? Ram the Eva."

"Yes ma'am" Rei replied, shoving her control yokes forward.

The good feeling in Shinji's stomach promptly vanished.

* * *

Mari had done a lot of crazy things in her life, she thought upon reflection. Since becoming an Eva pilot, she had found herself in a number of impossible situations, and yet still somehow managed to live to tell about it. So, in the grand scheme of things, she should have been rather unimpressed to find herself piloting an old, clunky piece of pre-Impact machinery while fighting a man-made monstrosity distilled from the DNA of an ancient alien beast, while standing on the back of another, much more massive ancient alien beast that had been cobbled into a warship.

She should have been unimpressed. But she was, in fact, giddy with excitement.

"Yeee-hawww!" she shouted in elation, as she Wunder kicked beneath her like a bucking bronco, the Eva Series growling at her on all fours for stability.

If Mari had to say one thing about Miss Ayanami, it was that she flew like a bat out of hell! There she had been, Mari thought, engrossed in a rock 'em, sock 'em tousle with the first of what promised to be a multitude of Eva Series, when the Wunder itself had struck the Eva head on, much like it had done with Unit 13 not so long ago. Not wanting to be left out of the fight, Mari had quickly fired off one of the JA unit's grappling lines to grab the Wunder's underside, and had simply let the warship carry her unit up into the sky.

The Eva had been stunned by the initial impact, but had recovered quickly and had lept into the air over the Wunder to attack the beast from above. By then, however, Mari had managed to reel herself onto the ship and climb to the top, and had fired off her grappling line again, this time at the Eva. Her aim had struck home, and instead of landing a fearsome kick that may well have gouged a hole in the ship's hull, the Eva had tumbled haphazardly onto the Wunder's top deck, the JA's grappling line still wrapped around its waist.

What had followed was a series of ferocious bobs and weaves, whereupon neither the Eva nor the JA could focus much attention on battling each other in favor of not being swept off the ship's deck! The Eva had managed little more than menacing growls in the ordeal. Mari wasn't sure what Rei was trying to do, but if her intention was to keep the Eva occupied, she was doing a good job of it. And Mari was certainly happy to help by keeping the Eva's attention focused on her, and not the ship itself, or worse, the base.

"I think I'm going to be sick…" Shinji bellyached over the radio.

Mari rolled her JA unit backwards, dodging a wild swing of the Eva's arms as she propped herself on all fours while the Eva was cast to the side as the Wunder came about yet again.

"Alright, you pansy!" Mari crowed haughtily as her JA got to its feet, though she knew of course the Eva could neither hear nor comprehend her. "Let's dance!"

There would be no dancing for them that day, however, as Rei's face appeared on Mari's viewscreen.

"Pilot Makinami," she said militantly. "I regret to inform you that, per the Captain's orders, it is now time for the two of you to disembark. Please brace for impact."

Mari's expression fell. She did not like the sound of that.

She liked it even less when the Wunder simply flipped upside down, dumping both the Eva and Mari's JA unit over the side, sending them tumbling down to the ground.

The JA hit the charred ground hard and rolled and tumbled roughly. Inside the cockpit, Mari was tossed back and forth in her restraining harness. Though her harness had kept her safe from severe injury, she had managed to get a nasty cut on her face with blood trickling down over one eye behind her glasses.

"Jeez…" she muttered, grumpily. "A little more warning next time?"

As she slowly got her JA unit to its feet, a process that took a lot more time than usual, considering how beat up her JA unit was, the Operations Director's face appeared on her screen.

"Mari, the base is about to open fire with an experimental weapon," Maya said sternly. "I suggest you get clear."

As the Eva slowly climbed to its feet with a growl, Mari turned to see that Outpost Zion was just behind her. The AT barrier around the compound had begun to glow even brighter than it usually was, as its color began to slowly shift from yellow to orange to red. As its color shifted, she began to notice that parts of the barrier on the opposite side began to dissipate into hexagonal gaps, a gap on the opposite side slowly forming as more hexagonal pieces flitted out of existence. Soon, the gap had expanded to the circumference of the entire dome, which was now more of a hemisphere, and still falling away as the energy going into all the separate panels were being transferred one by one into a single, solitary panel facing the enemy.

The Eva Series, seeming to recognize the threat, let out a roar as its wide visor began to glow as it prepared an optic blast.

"Oh, no you don't!" Mari shouted and mirrored Asuka's attack, lunging for the Eva, whose blast was once again sent skyward from the bull rush.

She tackled the Eva to the ground, planting her unit's arms and legs firmly to the ground on all sides of it.

"You stay right here!" Mari smirked.

The Eva growled in frustration, biting into the JA unit to corrode its armor into core material, as all the while, the AT barrier surrounding Outpost Zion began to condense even further, its colors shimmering in a prismatic array of luminescence.

"Get out of there, Four-Eyes!" Asuka shouted over her intercom.

"Not yet!" Mari shouted back, gritting her teeth as the controls in front of her began to spark as her unit's systems began failing. "I've got to keep the Eva from getting a shot in!"

"Mari!" Maya's voice sounded over the comm. "Your unit's been compromised, and you're right in the line of fire! Eject, now!"

"Just a little bit longer…" Mari breathed, glancing between the angry Eva sinking its teeth into her unit's metal chassis, her JA slowly turning red all over, and the AT barrier behind her that was down to five panels.

Then four…

Then three…

Then two…

"Now!" Mari shouted, pulling her ejection handle.

Just at that moment, the Eva managed to force the JA unit off of it, sending her unit sprawling. Her escape capsule didn't so much jet away as tumble and careen out of control, bouncing off of rocky and forested terrain, tossing and jostling its occupant like a hamster in a hamster ball.

"_Mari_!" Asuka shouted in alarm.

There was no response.

The Eva got to its feet and roared with triumph.

And before it knew what hit it, the AT field in front of it lanced out - literally, extending from the middle into a thin, red lance - to pierce the Eva through the chest. The beast did not even get a chance to roar in pain. It was simply thrown backwards, almost half a kilometer, before impacting with the terrain, the lance pinning it to the ground with a sudden but definite twang.

The Eva let out a single, desperate groan before shutting down, utterly paralyzed, just as Unit 01 had been once upon a time.

"What…" Misato demanded over the radio. "What the hell was _that!_?"

There was a pause as the dust settled, leaving the view of the carnage for all to see.

"That," Ritsuko said, in a mixture of disbelief and elation, "Was WILLE's first attempt at creating an artificial Spear of Cassius."

* * *

Shinji stared at the aftermath, his spirits somewhat dampened. True, they had won the battle. But he had contributed very little to their victory. It had mostly been the other pilots' doing. He felt rather extraneous in all this. And looking at the damage caused, he had to wonder…if this was what a single one of Eva Series could do, how were they to be a match for when the others came?

And something about that lance that had come from the base's AT barrier made him feel especially nervous.

"I hope Miss Makinami is alright," Shinji thought out loud as he inspected the spent husk that was the lone Eva Series.

Rei must have assumed he was speaking to her, for she responded.

"She has likely sustained whiplash from her escape pod's less than ideal launch conditions," she said simply. "But assuming her restraining harnesses were in place and her inertial dampeners still functioned, then she will most likely survive."

Shinji did not reply, but he did try to smile. He couldn't tell if Rei had been trying to alleviate his fears, or was simply being honest. But either way, he was just glad that she had considered his feelings at all.

"Should I transfer control now, Captain?" Shinji radioed into the bridge.

Misato's face appeared on his screen. "Just as soon as we make one last sweep of the area. In all that chaos, we could have easily-"

"Incoming!"

The shout had come from someone in the bridge - it sounded like Nagara - and had sounded loud even from through Shinji's display.

"What?" he tensed, heart in his throat. "What is it?"

Misato's face vanished from the screen as she moved away, as the sound of clamoring bridge bunnies congealed into white noise.

"What is it!?" Shinji demanded, even louder.

Finally, Misato's face returned to the screen.

"Another one of the Eva Series!" Misato shouted, her voice in a panic. "Dropping in from directly overhead! It's aimed right at Zion!"

Shinji's heart sank. A_ second_ Eva Series!? They had barely managed to stop the _first_ of them!

In the background, he heard several discernible cries from the bridge crew.

"The outpost's barrier is still down!"

"It's aimed right at the civilian center!"

"At that speed, it's break right through the secondary barrier!"

"It must have just been _waiting_ for the moment to strike!"

Shinji could see the inevitable before it happened. The Eva was plunging towards the base's secondary AT barrier, which lined the top of the deep well of civilian housing like a thin sheet of yellow saran wrap. It's AT would neutralize that of the base, its momentum would carry it through, and the Eva would crash all the way to the bottom of the pit, doing incalculable damage as it fell to almost five hundred thousand men, women and children. The death toll would be catastrophic!

He clenched his teeth. With each passing moment, Shinji felt himself beginning to panic. NERV wasn't pulling any punches. The Eva Series was going to destroy the last vestiges of humanity if they couldn't find a way to stop it.

"Captain!" Shinji cried. "What are your orders!?"

Misato looked utterly taken aback. "I…I don't…move to intercept!"

Rei obeyed immediately, pointing the Wunder's nose skyward as she thrust forward on the controls, kicking the S2 drive into gear and sending the ship rocketing upward in the direction of the descending Eva.

"Open fire, Shinji!" Misato cried, as she braced herself in her seat. "Hit it with everything you've got! We have to stop it, or every survivor in Zion is dead!"

Shinji gritted his teeth. He still couldn't see the oncoming Eva, though his head's up display showed the approximate position, and he began to fire.

"Keep firing!" Misato ordered, desperation in her voice. "That thing _can't_ be allowed to strike the base!"

Shinji didn't even register the breakneck speed at which Rei was flying, or how much his display shook and threw off his aim. As the tiny dot in the sky resolved into another gray-green Eva series plummeting from above, all thoughts turned to one thing, and one thing only:

_Enemy._

"Enemy…" Rei whispered through a clenched jaw, as if reading his thoughts.

The oddity of the situation didn't even register in Shinji's mind. He simply repeated that word.

"Enemy…" he breathed.

"Enemy…" Rei repeated.

He could hear Misato shouting desperate orders to keep firing, and a myriad of other things being shouted all across the bridge, but at that moment, all he and Rei could do was repeat that word over and over again.

"Enemy…"

"_Enemy…_"

"_ENEMY_!"

And when the two bodies collided in mid-air, that's when everything erupted into chaos.

The ridge arching the length of the Wunder's nose beneath the very tip of its snout began to widen and stretch, as though the muscles underneath were straining after an eternity of inactivity. The Wunder's eyes had stopped firing as the long, pointed head began to twist and struggle, the ridge beneath its nose continuing to stretch.

Until the moment before it collided with the Eva, the ridge finally ripped open, like a pair of lips that had been stitched together, revealing a mouthful of several rows of wicked and deadly looking teeth, its jaw practically unhinging to open wide enough to catch the Eva whole, like a fish between its teeth.

Shinji could barely register the confusion that ensued. The impact had sent the ship hurdling out of control, twisting and turning as the Wunder flapped its wings to regain balance. The Eva Series was roaring and thrashing between the Wunder's teeth. Misato was shouting something at him through the screen, but the sound of alarms and creaking, groaning metal was drowning out all other noise.

He could practically feel the world around him, like the Wunder was an extension of his body. He could feel himself falling, the wind buffeting his body. It was almost a calming sensation, proof that the world was still alive. He felt enormous, as if the fall were scarcely a threat at all. The ship's wings were _his_ arms. It's eyes were _his_ eyes, it's face _his_ face, and it's mouth _his_ mouth.

And between his teeth…was his prey.

And he was feeling _mighty_ hungry after having been asleep for so long.

He bit down.

* * *

"Shinji! What the _hell_ is happening up there!?"

Asuka's voice finally registered in the back of Shinji's mind, and he blinked away his reverie.

"Asuka?" he said, looking around in confusion.

He was still in his entry plug. The world around him was still spinning out of control as the ship tumbled towards the ground. He may have been imagining things, but he could vaguely recall the sensation of hunger bubbling in his stomach. He felt nothing aside from the gut wrenching experience of falling, and he could not see anything other than the spinning world from his current position.

He became aware of alarm bells beeping all around him, and Misato shouting something in a panicked voice through the intercom. Her face was a desperate mask of fear and confusion, and she looked utterly terrified. But he still couldn't make out her voice over all this noise and confusion and turbulence.

They needed to get the ship under control.

"Ayanami?" he croaked, fighting a wave of dizziness. If anyone could keep this ship from crashing, it would be her.

But there was no answer.

He threw himself forward to peer down at her seat, fearing that she had somehow been sucked back into the Eva, but he found her sitting where she always had been.

But something was wrong.

She was seated in a very awkward position, clutching the control yokes with a kind of quiet desperation he was not used to seeing. Her feet were digging into the footrests, and her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were clenched as her body contorted in pain.

"Ayanami!?" he shouted in panic, fear pounding in his chest.

Rei didn't seem to register his voice. She couldn't hear him at all.

All she could do was convulse in pain, as she threw her head back to release a terrifying, earsplitting scream.

* * *

To be continued…


	14. Chapter 13

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 13

* * *

Rei Ayanami lay unconscious in a hospital bed in the medical wing of Lilin Outpost Zion, an IV tube in her left arm and a pulse-oximeter clipped to her left index finger, a hefty piece of machinery beside the bed measuring the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.

It was the day after the battle, and Dr. Akagi had asked both Shinji and Asuka to come to a briefing in the scientific research and development wing, which shared a hallway with the WILLE's medical wing. As populated as outpost Zion was, it's military arm was vastly dwarfed by its civilian population, and the civilian medical centers were located down below within the secluded pit at the center of the base. As a result, WILLE's science wing and medical wing were rather cramped together to make room for other necessities, such as launch bays and Eva cages.

This turned out to be a good thing, for when Shinji and Asuka both arrived at Ritsuko's lab in R&D, the doctor was nowhere to be found. After a bit of wandering, however, they found her in the medical wing, running some blood tests on Ayanami.

"Sorry I missed you two," she said, as Shinji and Asuka both entered through the doorway, both wearing their WILLE uniforms. "Had to check on Rei."

Ritsuko had dark circles under her eyes, and looked like she hadn't slept in days. She wore a white lab coat over her black tank top, now that her fur parka was no longer a necessity. She held a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other, and an empty mug of coffee sat on the desk by the monitoring equipment. Numerous hospital beds lined the wall, separated by thin white curtains. The first and foremost was occupied by Ayanami, and there was a familiar looking brunette in a neck brace lying in a bed two rows down.

Asuka decided to go stand by Mari's bed until she was needed. It was not that she cared about Mari's health, she thought to herself, but it certainly beat watching the brat fawn over his NERV clone. Asuka was, however, a bit perplexed at why it had been Dr. Akagi who had called this briefing, and not the Colonel. But she didn't voice her concern. Misato was a busy woman, and Ritsuko _was_ technically second in command for all of WILLE, so as far as she was concerned, she spoke with the Captain's authority.

"How is she?" Shinji asked first thing as he hurried to the uncluttered left side of her bed, concern evident in his voice as his eyes locked with Rei's sleeping form. "Will she be alright?"

Shinji had not slept last night, for fear of what danger Rei might have been in. He had tried to follow along as they had whisked her out of the entry plug and off in a hospital gurney, before he wasn't permitted any further. He had been in such a panic after they had collided with the second Eva Series that he hadn't even noticed Lieutenant Commander Nagara cut his connection and seize control of the Wunder to bring it safely to dock with the base. He had no idea how they had even made it back to the ground in one piece.

All he had been aware of was Rei's tormented, agonized scream.

"She's fine," Ritsuko assured him, distractedly. "More than fine, actually. I suspect she's just sleeping due to exhaustion. All her vitals check out perfectly healthy."

Shinji let out a sigh of relief as he gingerly took her unmoving hand in his. He was still not entirely sure what had happened during the final moments of that battle. He could remember flying upwards towards the descending Eva, firing desperately to take it down, before crashing headlong into it, and then nothing. For some reason, though, he recalled a deep, growling hunger in the pit of his stomach that had arisen in the midst of it all that could not be ignored, even on the battlefield.

After that, all he remembered was Asuka's voice calling out to him, and Rei's sudden scream as she was stricken with pain. He had been nearly inconsolable after the lab technicians had hauled him and Rei out of the entry plug, but no one seemed inclined to inform him of what exactly had gone wrong, or how exactly the battle had ended.

But at least now, he knew Rei would be alright. Shinji squeezed her warm hand in his own as he slowly felt his anxiety subside.

As he began to examine her features more closely, however, he had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing things clearly. He couldn't be sure if what he was seeing was just some trick of the light, but the more he gazed upon her, the more he became convinced that something was wrong.

"Dr. Akagi…" he breathed softly, not wanting to interrupt the Doctor as she scrawled some notes on her clipboard. "Does her hair look…darker…to you?"

Ritsuko looked down at her patient and had to agree that, indeed, Rei's hair, normally an obscure sky blue tone, was now more of a deep royal blue. Moreover, her skin tone, normally a pure white alabaster, was now a more natural looking cream color. It was not obvious to the passive observer, but as someone who had spent time with the girl, day in and day out on some occasions, the difference was striking.

She clicked the top of her pen to let the inked ball point slip back into the thin metal shaft.

"That may have something to do with her current condition," the Doctor said, tapping the end of her pen against her lips, clearly longing for a smoke break, but unable to do so in the presence of her patients. "Everything about her vitals suggests that she should have been up and about this morning."

Shinji nodded, clearly not understanding. "So…why isn't she?"

"Allow me to clarify…" Ritsuko cleared her throat. "Rei is as healthy as an ox right now."

Shinji blinked. That was not a term he was accustomed to hearing ascribed to young women, but it still technically counted as good news, didn't it?

"Shinji…" Ritsuko breathed, as if she could not fathom his inability to understand the reality that she had dealt with after years and years of treating and fostering the girl growing up. "When have you _ever_ known Rei to be even _remotely_ vivacious? Her medical records from before Third Impact cut off after a certain point, but according to all of our data, Rei has _never_ been this healthy before."

Shinji's eyes widened. While hearing of Rei's improved health should have been a good thing, the implications that Ritsuko was driving towards could not have been anywhere good.

"It's not just her hair that's changed, Shinji," Ritsuko set her clipboard down on the desk by the heart monitor. "Look at her skin. She used to be bordering on albinism, but now her melanin content is actually approaching healthy levels. And look…"

Ritsuko delicately placed two gloved fingertips on Rei's cheek and eyebrow, stretching her left eyelid open.

Shinji blinked in astonishment.

Her eyes still had their reddish hue, but _barely_! Her eyes seemed to have darkened into a much less harsh, more natural looking burgundy.

"And these are just the surface changes," Ritsuko stewed as she flipped through her notes. "Her heart rate, blood sugar levels, even her white cell count…everything about her physical health has improved substantially since exiting that entry plug."

Shinji was stared at the girl on the bed, aghast.

"What's this all mean?" he asked, fearfully.

Ritsuko sighed, leaning against the wall and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I could hazard a guess, but I'd like to examine that core that we retrieved from the first Eva Series that we took down before making up my mind."

Shinji blinked, suddenly lost. "Core?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Our experimental weapon managed to place the Eva into a state of paralysis, much like what happened to Unit 01 when it was struck by the Spear of Cassius. It's core is fully intact, and was extracted sometime early this morning for study and, hopefully, for use in powering our existing Eva unit, once it becomes operational."

Shinji heard Asuka scoff at that, but she otherwise said nothing.

"You extracted it's core to power Unit 02?" Shinji asked, dumbly. "Why not just…keep the entire Eva as it is? Let one of us pilot it?"

"That might work if that unit's entry plug wasn't fused into its socket," Ritsuko sighed. "Its plunged so far down into plug depth that we have no means of getting it back out again without tearing the Eva's spinal column apart - a task which we have neither the time nor the hardware to do. Besides, we have no idea what this Eva is capable of, or what traps or pitfalls NERV may have placed inside its body for us to stumble upon. No, I'd rather stick with the devil we know than the devil we don't. Though we are of course going to be using it for parts."

Shinji nodded. "Ok, so…what does this thing's core have to do with Ayanami?"

Ritsuko frowned, giving him a quizzical look. "You really don't remember?"

"Remember what!?" Shinji demanded in frustration. "No one will tell me anything about what happened!"

Ritsuko rubbed her eyes. "Shinji…while I doubt this was a conscious effort on your part…you and Rei seem to have awakened yet _another_ ability in the Wunder. This ability, however, is much more troubling than the others, and could pose a significant risk if left unchecked."

"What?" Shinji gripped the rails on Rei's bed tightly. "What ability?"

Ritsuko looked like she could really, really use a cigarette right at that moment.

"Shinji…" she breathed. "The Wunder…opened its mouth. And it…_ate…_the other Eva."

Shinji's eyes widened. "Wh…what…?"

The Doctor sighed. "Just as you've given the Wunder wings to fly and eyes to pierce the heavens, you have also given the Wunder a mouth with which it may consume the flesh of an Angel, and, more importantly, its S2 device."

Shinji reached behind himself for one of the plastic hospital chairs and fell back into it awkwardly.

"It…_ate_…the Eva…?" he asked aloud in disbelief.

Ritsuko nodded. "We ran diagnostics on the Wunder's core after the incident. There were no operational anomalies, however we did find it to be about twelve percent denser than it had been originally."

She stood from the wall and leaned over Rei's bed, gripping the bars opposite Shinji to peer at him.

"Twelve percent, Shinji," she repeated. "The Wunder's core is larger than an Angel's or an Eva's to be sure, but not by all _that_ much. The addition of an entirely new S2 device into the ship's core should have had a much more prominent effect on it. Which begs the question…where did the remainder of the core material end up? And perhaps, just as important…what happened to the dummy plug that was inside this second Eva Series?"

Shinji's eyes fell on Rei once more, and a whole new kind of fear overtook him.

"You know that the Ayanami Types are the primary platforms for the dummy plugs, Shinji…" Ritsuko confirmed, not phrasing it as a question.

"No…" he breathed in disbelief, not phrasing it as an answer.

Ritsuko closed her eyes. "The Wunder absorbed the Eva's core, as well as the Ayanami Type at its helm, and in doing so, I believe it deposited whatever primal essence it was able to extract from the plug into the entry plug of Unit 01, where it reacted and fused with the Ayanami Type presently there, much the way Rei Q had."

"No…" Shinji muttered in disbelief.

"Well, that's the theory," Ritsuko said, dismissively. "It would go a long way towards explaining her physical differences and her improved health. If she now possesses the vital essence of two or more individuals, then it stands to reason that she'd be healthier than before. Until we know otherwise, we are classifying this one as Rei″."

Shinji shot to his feet, sending the plastic chair he was sitting in tumbling backwards.

"_No_!" he shouted, his voice echoing out into the hallways. "_That's enough_! Haven't you _toyed_ with her life enough already!?"

Asuka cast an odd glance in his direction, but otherwise said nothing.

Ritsuko seemed unaffected. "WILLE didn't do this to her, Shinji…the two of _you_ did this yourselves."

Shinji's head sunk into his hands and he grimaced in frustration.

"We wouldn't have even _been_ out there if you didn't need us to pilot the Wunder for you…"

Ritsuko's brow furrowed. "Shinji…how long are you going to keep hiding behind that excuse?"

The boy's face was still hidden in his hands. "Her name is _just_ Ayanami. Not Prime, not Double Prime…just _Rei Ayanami_!"

Tears rolled down his cheeks as his voice broke down into sobs.

"She has every right to happiness that we do!" he declared tearfully. "And she _doesn't_ deserve to be treated like this!"

Ritsuko's face softened.

"Listen," she said gently. "You and Rei did a _good_ thing out there. Thanks to your quick action, almost five hundred thousand souls made it out of yesterday's battle alive and unharmed. Those five hundred thousand people down there beneath your feet represent about three quarters of mankind as we know it! There might be other pockets of refugees out there, but as far as we know, this is _it._ Make no mistake, Shinji…the two of you just saved humanity. You two are heroes."

Shinji still would not look at her face. And from the sound of his breathing, he was still crying.

Ritsuko let out a forlorn sigh.

In truth, her thoughts were on someone else entirely.

"But heroism, unfortunately, often comes at a price."

* * *

The Wunder was equipped with quarters for all crew on board, though some were more spacious than others. The lower ranking crew members had to share bunks in a common sleeping area, those higher ranking staff, such as the pilots, got small, cramped individual bunks, and the senior officers got much more spacious quarters. The Captain's quarters was the nicest of all, but it was still limited by the bounds of practicality of what could be taken aboard a ship.

This was not the case for the Captain's quarters within WILLE's home base, however. The entire top level of Outpost Zion was devoted to senior officers, from meeting areas and war rooms to personal quarters for whenever the senior staff took shore leave. And the Captain's quarters was the most elegant of all. Misato had the entire room designed after a traditional Japanese stateroom, a testament to the culture of a homeland that had been utterly erased by war. Tatami floor mats lay underfoot and rice paper window panes overlooking the skyline, all bordered by lacquered red hardwood.

Various paintings, calligraphy and other Japanese artwork lined the walls, including a number of poems by distinguished warriors from ancient eras. A bedchamber with a single white floor mattress was sectioned off by a sliding wood and rice paper door, while the sitting room contained a single low wooden table, surrounded by four soft, white floor cushions. Other shelves and bookcases lay throughout the room, and all of it in the same red lacquered hardwood. Contrary to her previous life, Misato kept the room spotless and uncluttered, though this may have been due to the fact that she was almost never there.

Today, however, was an exception.

_"I can't even trust my own God-damned _ship_ anymore! How am I supposed to trust _you_!?"_

Voices echoed in the back of her mind as Misato let the door hiss shut behind her as she entered her quarters. The sliding mechanical door was the only evidence of technology and the world outside, and even that was covered by a rice paper wall mount, providing the illusion of it blending into the surrounding furnishings. She let out a breath, shuddering as she slipped her jacket and cap off, letting them fall to the floor.

_"Everything I did, I did because _you_ were too stubborn to see it! You're slipping, Misato!"_

She sat down on one of the floor mats, resting her body across the hardwood table, her chin resting on her arms. Her Captain's effects lay beside her, leaving only her black turtleneck and pants, a far more conservative outfit than what she would have worn back in the glory days. Though the fact that her time with NERV could even be considered 'glory days' by comparison was testament to just how far they all had fallen.

_"How long? How long have you been going behind my back, Ritsuko?"_

_"You know exactly how long! Ever since that boy came aboard, you've been completely irrational! All your fear and your hatred is throwing you off!"_

Misato pushed herself towards one of the cabinets by the wall and opened it, sifting through books and stationary, until she found a hidden panel at the back that opened up a secret compartment. Popping it open, she reached into it to withdraw a heavy glass bottle filled with a deep, amber liquor.

_"Damn it, I _trusted_ you! How could you do this to me!?"_

_"Do you think I _wanted_ it to be this way!? Do you think I had _any_ other choice? You're my _best friend_, Misato! But your actions have put your entire crew at risk! I couldn't watch you turn into one of the very monsters that you were trying to destroy! You're_ better_ than this, Misato!_"

Crawling her way back to the table, bottle in one hand and white porcelain glass in the other, Misato set her findings on the small table, and with shivering hands, poured the contents of one into the other.

* * *

Ritsuko had stepped out of the medical wing and back to her lab, leaving the two pilots alone with their bedridden companions. Rei was still sleeping, though Mari had awoken shortly after the Doctor had left, and was immediately full of her usual pep.

"Pfft, this thing?" she smiled, gesturing to the brace around her neck after Shinji inquired after it. "They just slapped this on me as a precaution. I'll be up and about in no time!"

Shinji sat back in this plastic hospital chair, looking slightly relieved. Asuka was still standing and leaning against the wall behind him, arms crossed, her one eye closed in contemplation.

"I'm so glad!" Shinji sighed sincerely. "When I saw how banged up your pod got, I thought you were a goner!"

"You worry too much, Puppy-Boy!" Mari quipped, pointing at his lip. "_You_ got more banged up from a bunch of thugs in the hallway than I did out there on the battlefield!"

Shinji touched the scar on his lower lip and shuddered at the memory. It still stung a little. He supposed the mark was just something that he would have to get used to. Just like his choker.

"You sure you're alright?" he asked, sympathetically.

"Sure I am!" She crowed, flexing her arm and holding it with the other. "A little joyride like that's not gonna take me down! I'm a tough ol' girl!"

"Not to mention sneaky," Asuka chimed in sardonically.

Shinji gave Asuka a wounded look. But Mari just smiled and shrugged.

"There you go again, Princess," she sighed wistfully. "Just got to ruin the mood."

"Whatever," Asuka opened her good eye. "I'm tired of playing games with you."

She stood up from the wall, taking a few steps towards the bed.

"You break a high security prisoner out of her cell one day, and not a week later, you're back out on the battlefield! _Who_ do you know that's got _that_ kind of pull!?"

Mari put on an innocent smile. "Whatever do you mean, Princess? Perhaps you've forgotten about the shock collar around my neck? It's still on, underneath this neck brace, y'know?"

Asuka's expression darkened. "Oh, I haven't forgotten. In fact, it's about to get me some answers."

She reached into her pocket, and withdrew the DSS trigger that the Captain had given her. In all the confusion that had transpired since then, no one had thought to take it from her.

Shinji reeled at the sight.

"Asuka!" he shouted in alarm, sitting up in his chair, eyes wide from fear and recognition.

"Relax, brat," Asuka placated him in a reprimanding tone. "It's just an electrical shock. It won't kill her."

"No, but it'll hurt," Mari pouted childishly at the other girl. "You wouldn't hurt someone who's been _injured_ now, would you?"

"Cut the crap!" Asuka blared. "I want to know who you're working with! How do you manage to hack into the Wunder's security protocols and let that NERV clone into the core?"

Asuka gestured to Rei's sleeping form to indicate her point.

"How do you second guess WILLE's number one leading scientific mind? How do you second guess the _Captain_!? And _then_, how do you manage to finagle your way out of your cell, having given absolutely _no_ information in exchange!? _Who_ exactly are you _fucking_ around here?"

Mari snorted back a laugh at that last part.

"Seriously, Princess?" she smirked derisively. "You think I'm gaming the system somehow? Here I thought the Puppy-Boy was the naive one, but you really have no idea how this all works, do you?"

Asuka pointed the DSS trigger in her hand at Mari, a dangerous look on her face.

"I'm going to give one…last…chance…" she said, menacingly. "_Who…_are you working for? I want a _name_."

Mari's expression was serious now. She had been sitting up in her bed, and she leaned forward now to peer back into Asuka's good eye.

"Have you considered…" Mari said, "That the only reason I haven't told you is because I don't _need_ to tell you?"

Asuka's grip on the trigger tightened, but she did not press the switch. Though her teeth were gritted, a heated growl emanating from low in her throat, and her fury written plain and simply on her face, she still did not press the switch.

"Make your threats, Princess," Mari said defiantly. "Lash out as much as you want. It won't get you anything. I've already told you everything you need to know."

Asuka's eye-patch flared an angry blue, and she raised the trigger as if to physically strike the other pilot with it.

"Asuka…" Shinji breathed, helplessly.

Asuka face was red with rage as her thumb hovered over the button.

She wanted to do it. She _really_ wanted to put the other girl in her place. It would be _so_ satisfying. But it would also be far too cruel for her tastes. As aggravating as Mari could be, as much of a duplicitous and manipulative bitch she could be, she was still a fellow pilot of WILLE. Whatever was going on around here was well above her pay grade, and while she knew for a certainty that Mari was meddling in affairs that ought not to be meddled in, she did not honestly believe she had turned against them, despite Asuka's accusations. A troublemaker was one thing, but a traitor she was not.

Asuka grunted in anger as she turned and chucked the trigger against the wall, letting it bounce and clatter to the floor, spinning in a circle until it rested on the linoleum.

"Damn it…" she muttered to herself, looking away in frustration and anger.

Mari blinked in surprise, narrowing her eyes to peer more closely at her fellow pilot.

"You _really_ can't do it, can you?" she breathed, as if she had honestly expected otherwise.

Asuka snorted, still looking away.

"It's not worth it…" she muttered, grumpily.

Mari let an uncertain smile creep to her face. "Heh…there really _is_ a human soul under all that posturing."

"Fuck you, Four-Eyes!" Asuka wrinkled her nose.

"Love you too, Princess," Mari smirked. The usual snark was back.

"Pfft!" Asuka snorted, turning to walk away. "I've had enough of this."

She got precisely two steps before Mari stopped her.

"Wait," she called out, sounding serious again. "Who do _you_ think I'm working with?"

Asuka didn't turn around, but she did stop and shrug her shoulders.

"Hell if I know."

Mari shrugged her shoulders. "Well…who had access all those security protocols? Who already knew everything that I was telling you? Who had the authority to let me out of my cell with little more than a slap on the wrist? Besides the Captain, who else _is_ there?

Asuka's frown deepened. "I know _exactly_ who you're implying, Four-Eyes. And I _don't_ like it."

Mari shrugged. "Ask her yourself. We staged a lot of it to make it look like it was happening naturally. Only way to convince the Captain, she said. She even asked me to babysit Puppy-Boy here."

She threw a wink at Shinji, whose confused face could only stare back in shock.

"Sorry if you were getting ideas, short stuff," she smiled apologetically. "But you're not really my type."

Shinji's expression went from shocked to hurt.

"What…?"

Asuka scowled. As was the nature of such things, knowing the truth did not make the situation any better. If anything, it made things much, much worse.

"I'm calling this in," she grunted, pulling her radio from her belt and lifting it to her ear. "Captain, this is Shikinami. Come in please."

Mari shrugged her shoulders. "It's not going to make a difference, Princess."

Asuka ignored her. "Captain, this is Shikinami! Do you read?"

A voice finally broke in on the other line. "Captain Shikinami? This is Lieutenant Commander Nagara."

"Nagara?" Asuka blinked in surprise. "Where's the Captain?"

"She's retired to her quarters, ma'am," Nagara responded, sounding helpless.

"Doesn't her radio also pick up in her quarters?" Asuka asked, suspiciously.

"On the ship, it does," Nagara replied. "But not her quarters on the base. That's where she is now."

"The Captain left the ship?" Asuka demanded, dumbfounded.

"I'm afraid so, ma'am," Nagara said. "She left me in charge until she got back."

Asuka threw a glance at Mari, who was only offering a catlike smile back at her, while Shinji hung his head, still reeling from the news.

She snorted. She wouldn't be getting anything else from these two.

"Roger that, Lieutenant Commander," she sighed in resignation. "I'll go find her. Shikinami out."

* * *

After an elevator ride to the top floor of the facility, Asuka knocked on the door to the Captain's quarters atop Lilin Outpost Zion.

"Colonel?" she called out.

There was no answer.

"Colonel?" she called again, knocking several more times.

There was the sound of some shuffling behind the door, and some muffled vocalization before Asuka finally heard a voice.

"Mmm…what is it, Captain?"

Asuka paused. There was something off about the Captain's voice.

"Is everything alright in there?" she asked, sounding concerned.

There was another pause.

"Of course," Misato's muffled voice said. "Is there something you need?"

Maybe it was the sound of her voice through the door, or the pauses between each thought, but something about this Misato struck an eerily familiar chord in Asuka's memory.

"Colonel," she called out, hesitantly. "I'm asking this out of honest concern and with all possible respect, but…are you drunk?"

"What?" the Captain replied, her voice an octave higher than it should have been. "No!"

Asuka gritted her teeth. The Captain had quit drinking a _long_ time ago. In her previous life, she had descended into alcoholism shortly after Third Impact, but the call of duty (and the world's dwindling supply of the substance) mandated that she quit cold turkey. It had been a rough transition, and Asuka and the other survivors of NERV had vivid memories of just how difficult it had been. That had been more than ten years ago.

"Colonel, I'm coming in!" Asuka announced, thumbing the door switch.

Misato's fumbled response came a second too late.

"No, don't-!"

She trailed off when the door hissed open and Asuka stood in the doorway, staring in disbelief at the sight she beheld. Misato was slouching over the small wooden table in the center of the room, a bottle of whiskey sitting half empty on the table, more than a bit of it spilled on the hardwood surface. Her jacket and cap, as well as her turtleneck littered the floor, leaving her in a tank top. Her hair had been let down, and her face was red and covered in sweat, her eyes bloodshot and blurry.

Asuka could not believe what she was seeing.

"Colonel…" she breathed in a crestfallen tone.

Misato glared back at her, before turning her face away in shame.

"I should court-martial you for this…"

Asuka hurried into the room, closing the door quickly behind her.

"Colonel, what are you doing!?" she demanded in exasperation. "What are you drinking!? Where did you even _get_ that!?"

Misato glanced at the bottle of whiskey on the table, studying it diligently. Luxury items, such as spirits, had become a rare commodity over the course of humanity's abrupt decline. There were undoubtedly countless reserves still left untouched throughout the world, but recovering refugees and vital supplies had always come before such frivolous things. The result being that, apart from imitation coffee, which had been fabricated along with most other nutrient pastes, the vast majority of luxury items were practically nonexistent within WILLE, although Dr. Akagi's cigarettes seemed to be the exception. Asuka was convinced the Doctor had been growing her own tobacco in a hydroponic facility somewhere.

"Squirreled it away," Misato responded, not really explaining. "Promised myself I would break it open to on the day we won this war. But now seems like as good a time as any."

"Colonel…" Asuka said, mouth hanging open in pity and disbelief. "What's going on?"

Misato took another sip from her ceramic glass, looking at something on the wall past Asuka.

"Why don't you tell me what you came here to report, Asuka."

Asuka hesitated. Her Captain was surely not in the right state of mind to hear what she had to say.

"I…think now isn't such a good time," she said, warily.

Misato slammed her glass on the table with a clunk, the table and bottle rattling from the impact.

"_Report_, Captain!"

"Ma'am!" Asuka stood up straight, responding almost automatically to her years of training. "I believe Doctor Akagi is Mari's accomplice!"

Misato seemed amused by that, and leaned on her hand, elbow on the table, while she sipped from her glass, staring wistfully out the window.

"Well…" she sighed in a gentle, breathy voice that hinted none of the betrayal she felt inside. "Imagine that…"

Asuka suddenly realized just why her Captain was in such a sorry state.

"You know!?"

Misato threw her an annoyed look.

"I'm not an _idiot_, Asuka," she snorted in irritation. "I put it together easily enough!"

Asuka knew she was staring, but she doubted Misato was aware of it. Her faith was crumbling by the moment. Was _this_ how the Captain of WILLE responded to betrayal?

"Well…" she muttered, still looking for a silver lining to all this. "What are you going to do about it?"

Misato let out a pained, helpless laugh as she looked up at the ceiling.

"What would you propose I do, Asuka?" she demanded, throwing her arms out wide. "Keep our best scientist and one of our only viable pilots locked in the brig?"

She laughed again, and placed a hand over her forehead, leaning forward on the table.

"Besides," she breathed, her words barely audible, "She was right the whole damn time!"

Asuka leaned forward to hear.

"What do you mean?"

Misato shook her head, her face still hidden behind her hand.

"If I had my way, Asuka, Shinji would be back in his cell right now," Misato sighed in shame. "But not only do we need him in the pilot seat, but Ritsuko saw it right away! It was _her_ idea to put him and Rei in the same entry plug! Hell, if it hadn't been for her, the we would have been torn apart by the Nemesis Series! It was her idea to meld the two Eva's, her idea to put you and Mari in the same cockpit, and her idea to deploy the two of you in that last battle! Every twist and turn that caught me unaware since you got back, and she's caught every single damn one of them!"

Misato face was drawn with sweat as she listed off her list of perceived shortcomings with increasing agitation, before grabbing the glass on the table and downing its contents.

"If I had trusted my gut, we'd be at the bottom of the ocean right now!" she coughed and sputtered. "I fought tooth and nail against every idea she's put forward since then, and I've been _wrong_ about _every _last one of them! These are decisions that would have the difference between life and death, and I've been off on _all_ of them!"

She shook her head in disbelief, out of breath.

"Ritsuko saw the clear path from A to Z without all that baggage weighing her down!" she groaned. "One of the perks of being scientifically impartial, I guess…"

Asuka couldn't believe what she was hearing! Was the Captain actually _ceding_ to Dr. Akagi and Mari's opposition!?

"Colonel!" she blurted, flabbergasted. "Right or wrong, she…she _still_ went behind your back! She and Four-Eyes conspired to commit treason!"

"It's not treason when your Captain's not fit for duty," Misato huffed, bitterly.

Asuka shook her head, every fiber of her being rejecting what she was hearing.

"Colonel…" she breathed. "Your current state aside…you're the most capable person I know! If it wasn't for your decision to employ that experimental weapon, there's no way we would have won that last battle."

"And look how well _that_ turned out," Misato laughed, setting her glass down, sending it sliding across the table. "I'd tell you not to sugarcoat it, Asuka, but I know _exactly_ how capable I am."

She leaned back on her arms, staring at the ceiling.

"The truth is, if I was at my best, I would have jumped through every single one of those hoops with ease," she admitted.

She sat forward again, resting forward on both arms.

"But I wasn't thinking in the here and now," she groaned, laying her chin on her arms. "I've been reliving Third Impact since the day he showed up. I was making _crucial_ decisions for the future of WILLE and humanity based on fourteen years of fear and torment. Ritsuko's capable of looking past all that. I'm _not._"

Asuka's good eye was a tiny dot at the center of a sea of white.

"Colonel…" she breathed in disbelief. "What are you saying?"

"I already told you, Asuka," Misato thrust her chin out. "I'm not fit for duty."

She sat upright, folding her arms together and stared down at her table and the bottle that sat upon it, watching her past slowly devouring her world until there was nothing left of it but a cold, clammy lump in her throat.

"I'm stepping down from my position as commander of WILLE."

* * *

To be continued…


	15. Chapter 14

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

* * *

A/N: Cheesiness and sappy dialogue ahead. Ye be warned.

* * *

Chapter 14

* * *

Mari watched Shinji with a sympathetic expression on her face as he sat with his head hung next to her hospital bed. She said nothing as she watched him. Usually, she would be all mouth, but she could tell he needed some time to process all this. Her neck brace itched, but she ignored it. When he was ready to speak again, he would. She could tell that Shinji had been hurt by her revelation, and since she had come clean with Asuka, she figured she may as well set things to rights with Shinji as well.

Finally, he spoke.

"So how much of it was a lie?" he asked, stoically.

Mari smiled earnestly. "Not all that much, really. I do feel indebted to Miss Ayanami for saving my life. And I do feel as though you and her got the short end of the stick here. But neither of those things would be enough to make me go disobeying orders."

She offered a helpless shrug.

"As harsh as it sounds, Puppy-Boy, this is war," she said, expression resigned. "People get hurt. On both sides. We do what we need to do to keep moving."

Shinji shook his head, his expression still bitter.

"So, you were just…acting like you cared?"

"I _do_ care, Shinji," she assured him, sympathetically. "But I care about my _comrades_ too! I care about humanity, and ending this war. And if that means thumbing my nose at the Captain, taking the fall for the Doctor's imposition, or appeasing a boy who's been broken by that war and trying to make him into a better soldier…then is it really so wrong of me to bat my eyelashes and say a few kind words?"

Shinji exhaled, still not meeting her gaze. "It is if you don't really mean it."

Mari took a breath.

"I believe in what I'm fighting for, Puppy-Boy, that much you can be sure of," she said simply. "And from what I've seen, so do you. The Captain may not agree, but Dr. Akagi thinks that you're the key to putting an end to this war. And so do I. That's why I followed her lead. Our beliefs just happen to include you and Rei being treated with a little more dignity. That may not be our primary cause, but that doesn't mean it's not something we want for you."

Mari stuck out her tongue.

"And if I came off as a little too flirtatious, that's just how I am," she waved her knuckles in a cat-like gesture. "Nya!"

Shinji shook his head. "Trust me, I wasn't getting my hopes up."

Mari pursed her lips at that.

"You seem to have eyes for the Princess though," she looked at him inquisitively. "And you _clearly_ care about Miss Ayanami."

Shinji just shrugged. There was really no point in denying it.

"So I'm wondering…" Mari mused, playfully. "This all supposedly started because you felt like you had to save someone. But if it came down to it, and you could only save _one_ of them…who would you choose?"

Shinji was thinking now. He had stopped his agitated fidgeting, but he hadn't lifted his head yet.

"Probably Ayanami," he said weakly. "Asuka's strong enough to take care of herself. And she wouldn't forgive me for stepping in like that."

Mari appeared troubled by that.

"She's not as strong as she pretends to be, you know?"

Shinji shook his head.

"She would still never accept my help," he said simply. "She's too proud. And she doesn't trust me anymore. Not that I blame her."

Mari tisked lightly. "Oh, Puppy-Boy…you really don't know anything, do you?"

Shinji looked up at her, red-faced from dried tears. "I know that she doesn't believe in me anymore. No one on this ship does."

Mari shook her head, placing a hand on her chest. "The Doctor believes in you! _I_ believe in you!"

"Maybe so…" Shinji allowed. "But only because you don't have a choice."

Mari pouted cutely. "Shinji…"

"Don't lie to me," he grumbled. "The only reason you went against the Captain's orders was because you knew that _she_ didn't believe in me, right?"

Mari sighed. "Well, yeah…but more importantly, we knew that her beliefs might get you killed or captured again, or otherwise shatter your faith in us. We need _you_ to believe in _us_ as much as _we_ believe in _you_, Puppy-Boy."

"Why?" Shinji shook his head, not understanding. "Why do you think I can do _anything_ to help? You _know_ what I've done! You _know_ what I'm responsible for! I've failed the entire planet! No one on this ship even wants me here!"

"What people think about your past crimes doesn't change what you can do in the present," Mari shook her head. "We've _seen_ just what you can do when you're pushed. We've _seen_ what a force for humanity you can be. And like it or not, we believe that humanity needs you."

She crossed her arms.

"But we're just soldiers. What we believe doesn't matter. It's what the _Captain_ believes that really matters. What she believe affects all of WILLE. And that's why we had to circumvent her will. She wouldn't see the truth on her own - she had to be shown."

Mari shrugged.

"At least, that's what the Doctor thinks. Personally, I think the Captain is too set in her ways. Too much has happened these past fourteen years, and she's taken it far too hard to ever be swayed."

Shinji gritted his teeth. "I don't believe you…"

Mari's expression softened. "I'm sorry, Puppy-Boy. I really am. But as long as Captain Katsuragi is in charge, then you'll always be a prisoner here, in spirit if not in name."

Shinji shook his head. He didn't believe it. He couldn't believe that Misato would never, ever change her mind about him. Because if Misato, the woman who had taken him into her home, couldn't forgive him, then how could he expect anyone else to?

That was when Dr. Akagi's voice sounded over the base loudspeakers, echoing down the halls for all to hear.

"_Attention all WILLE personnel_…" her amplified voice gently resonated. "_Attention all WILLE personnel…this is Vice Commander Ritsuko Akagi._"

Shinji blinked in surprise. This was the first time he heard Ritsuko use her full title before.

"_Effective immediately, Colonel Misato Katsuragi has resigned her command of WILLE. I repeat: Colonel Katsuragi…"_

Time seemed to stop.

"What…?" Shinji breathed in disbelief, the droning of Ritsuko's voice fading into obscurity.

Misato? Resigned? That didn't make any sense! Why would she resign!? It was impossible! The Misato that he knew would _n__ever_ do that! She was stronger than that! She was too _stubborn_ for that!

_"…I would like a status update from each division by the end of the day,"_ Ritsuko finished. _"Thank you for your time."_

Shinji was still reeling. No, this was all wrong! Misato wasn't supposed to resign! They needed her! It didn't matter that she had treated him unfairly, he still trusted her! And he didn't trust anyone else to do the job that she could!

Then a fearful thought overtook him.

Had this all happened because of him?

"Hmm…" Mari mused at the news. "Wasn't expecting _that_, but…well, this makes things _real_ simple. Now all we have to do is get our Eva back up to operational readiness and…"

She trailed off as Shinji suddenly got to his feet, making for the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" she asked, completely thrown off.

"I'm going to talk to the Captain," Shinji said without stopping. "Something's not right."

Mari jumped out of bed, fumbling with the velcro ties to her neck brace, before yanking it off her shoulders and throwing it to the bed, following after him.

"Shinji, what are you doing?" she demanded in an exasperated tone. "This is _exactly_ what we need! With the Captain stepping down, you'll be free to-"

"Free to what?" Shinji interrupted, stepping out the door, with Mari hot on his heels in her hospital gown. "Free to follow somebody _else_ to my doom? I may not like the way everyone here treats me Makinami, but at least I know I can trust the person in charge."

He threw Mari a sour look.

"You, I'm not so sure about…"

Mari withered under the look. "I already said I was sorry!"

"Whatever," Shinji shook his head. "I got to go…"

"The Captain won't listen to anything you have to say, Puppy-Boy!" Mari protested.

Shinji didn't even slow down.

"You may have given up on the Captain," he muttered grimly. "She may have even given up on herself. Hell, she's long since given up on me…"

He turned his head to peer back at her over his shoulder.

"But I refuse to give up on her," he said resolutely. "I'm going."

* * *

Asuka stood over Dr. Akagi, who looked more haggard than ever as she sat in a swivel chair at her desk, scribbling some notes on a clipboard, a spent cigarette hanging from her lips. Her cheeks were gaunt, her face unmade, and her age was starting to show. A mound of cigarette butts spilled over the ashtray, the ceramic barely visible underneath. No less than a dozen different computer monitors fed out data at an accelerated rate all around her, the tables surrounding her lab littered with paper.

"I didn't want this, you know," Ritsuko muttered aloud.

Asuka crossed her arms.

"Could have fooled me," she glared disapprovingly. "This all played out a little too well for you."

Ritsuko paused what she was doing and looked up at the pilot in utter stupefaction.

"Asuka…" she said evenly. "Our JA platoons have been reduced by half, and the Wunder is short its minimum requirement of pilots by half as well."

She pointed her finger in the general direction of the coastline.

"We _can't_ repel another attack like that," she said simply. "Which means that my top priority right now is getting Unit 02+08 up and running."

Asuka raised an incredulous eyebrow. "02+08? Really?"

"Never mind the God damned designation, Asuka!" Ritsuko blared, getting more flustered. "We are practically stitching this Eva together with _shoestring_ at this point! Our capital ship has suddenly decided it has an appetite for S2 devices, Rei is metamorphosing like a chrysalis, and _I_ can't be in three places at once! Maya's overseeing the disassembly of the captured Eva Series, my engineers are _stumped_ over what to do about the Wunder, and I've got Second Lieutenant Suzuhara doing Rei's blood work for crying out loud! I don't think she even knows what her blood _is_!"

Ritsuko fixed Asuka with a bloodshot stare that was verging on panic.

"Do you _honestly_ think I have time to run our _entire_ operation on top of all this!?"

Asuka held her hands up. "Alright, alright, I get your point already! So you're not, like, spying for NERV or something?"

Ritsuko stared at her in disbelief. "No! If I wanted to sabotage WILLE, I could have _easily_ managed it a dozen of times over by now! I'd be off, enjoying my impending doom with a stiff drink and a long nap! WILLE is _barely_ holding together as it is! It will take a lot more effort to keep it together than it will to drive it apart! And with Misato resigning, that's just going to create more tension and decrease morale! I needed Misato at the _head_ of all this, not crawling back into a bottle! This is an _utter_ disaster!"

Asuka crossed her arms, still suspicious. "So you mean to tell me that you did all this just to convince the Captain that Shinji _isn't_ the world's biggest idiot?"

"I don't care if he has an IQ of _negative two_, Asuka," Ritsuko muttered, refocusing her attention on her work. "We can _use_ him. Matter of fact, we _have_ to use him. Without him, our chances of success start banking on miracles! And by alienating him like we've been doing, we are shooting ourselves in the foot! But Misato can't see that! All she sees is the boy who caused Third Impact!"

"Now why would she get hung up on a thing like that?" Asuka grunted sarcastically. "Oh, maybe because he _did_ cause Third Impact?"

"_Yes_, he did, Asuka!" Ritsuko said, her patience wearing thin. "Third Impact happened! It was terrible! A lot of people died! But it _happened!_ It's in the _past!_ And after fourteen years of this, we might actually be able to _do_ something about it now! But _only_ if we set aside our anger and work with the boy who _happened_ to bring it about."

"And that doesn't strike you as completely asinine?" Asuka demanded. "The brat nearly brought about a _Fourth_ Impact within a _week_ of waking him up! Give him half a chance, and he'll do it again! Fool me twice, shame on me! He can't be trusted!"

"He only did so after NERV got their hands on him!" Ritsuko assured her. "Just because NERV excels at indoctrination doesn't mean we shouldn't try to sway him to our cause! With the right training, the right guidance, and a firm hand, he might be able to finally put an _end_ to all this! Who else would want to put this behind them more than the one who inadvertently caused it in the first place? Who else but Shinji?"

"I still don't trust him," Asuka said adamantly.

"I'm not asking you to, Asuka," Ritsuko said. "I'm asking that you trust _me_. Are you so dead-set in your anger towards Shinji that you would be willing to lose our only chance at rebuilding this world out of hand, simply on a matter of principle?"

Asuka had to hesitate at that. Ritsuko made a valid point. If - and that was a very, very big if - Shinji could be controlled, then it made no sense not to use him if he was truly that valuable to the mission. She was skeptical about his actual value, but the Doctor had steered them true before, and if she thought he was truly that important, then who was Asuka to argue? It was the feasibility of this plan, however, that Asuka was hung up on.

Seeing her Captain as she'd been wasn't making her any more optimistic.

"What's so special about him, anyway?" Asuka demanded. "Why do we need him?"

"Because we _need_ a dual entry system to get into Terminal Dogma," Ritsuko explained. "And he and Rei can synchronize like they were _born_ for it."

For some reason, that thought raised the hackles on the back of Asuka's neck.

"What about me and Four-Eyes?" she demanded.

"Have you _seen_ your sync scores with her?" Ritsuko demanded. "They're barely high enough to get the Eva past the activation border. You and Mari have been at each others' throats since this all started. You two need to bury the hatchet and soon if you ever plan to be useful in the future. Right now, Shinji and Rei represent our _only_ chance at beating NERV."

Asuka threw up her arms in exasperation. "Fine, then! So talk to the Captain, see if you can get her to reconsider."

"I've _been_ talking with her Asuka," Ritsuko said in frustration. "But she doesn't want to talk to me - I'm half the reason she resigned."

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Go figure. And who's the other half?"

Ritsuko looked past Asuka as a familiar figure hurried through her door.

"Doctor!" Shinji blurted, causing Asuka to turn towards him. "Where's the Captain? I need to talk to her!"

"She's…in her private quarters on the top floor," Ritsuko responded simply.

Shinji hung his head, out of breath. He looked like he had been all over the compound looking for her.

Asuka raised an eyebrow in Shinji's direction. "Shinji, do you _honestly_ expect that she's going to want to talk to _you_ of all people?"

"I _have_ to talk to her, Asuka!" he said in a determined voice. "None of this feels right without the Captain leading us. She _belongs_ at the head of WILLE. Without her, we've already lost."

Asuka bit her tongue. She did not want to admit it out loud, but on this point at least, she and Shinji were agreed.

"That might actually be just what she needs," Ritsuko nodded, approvingly. "She and Shinji have some unresolved issues to work out, and addressing them in private might help clear her head. Asuka, would you show him to the Captain's quarters?"

"Are you _sure_ that's a good idea?" Asuka asked, honestly worried.

"Probably not," Ritusko admitted. "But we're not really swimming in options right now."

"Fine, but why do _I_ have to take him?" Asuka complained, sounding like she just got stuck with doing the dishes.

"So I can actually get back to work?" Ritsuko raised an eyebrow.

Asuka took the hint and threw her arms up. "Alright, alright…"

Turning to the door, she waved for Shinji to follow her, her voice an impatient tone.

"Come on, let's go."

* * *

Asuka knocked tentatively on Misato's door.

"Colonel," she called out. "May I come in?"

There was a pause, before the door slid open, revealing a very tired looking Misato. She was still wearing her black tank top and pants, her hair was a mess, her eyes were bloodshot, and her breath smelled of whiskey from here. Her boots sitting by the door, a single lamp providing minimal illumination, casting the stateroom in a dim, evening glow.

"What do you need, Asuka?" she asked impatiently.

Asuka let out a sigh and gestured to her right, speaking in a tone that suggested she didn't even believe the words coming out of her own mouth.

"There's…someone you need to see…"

Shinji stepped into view, a nervous smile on his face as he inclined his head.

Misato's eyebrows knit as her eyes fell on the boy.

"Shinji…" she breathed in disgust, saying his name like a curse word.

She wrinkled her nose and turned away.

"You're the _last_ person I want to see right now."

Misato slammed the palm of her hand into her door control panel. But before the door could slide shut however, Shinji stuck his hand out and caught the door before it could seal. A single red light along the door frame beeped in distress as the door's safety triggered, and it slid back open, letting Shinji hurry inside before Asuka could even think to stop him.

"Shinji!" she blared in surprise. She had honestly not expected such a ballsy move out of him.

"Wait, Captain!" he begged insistently as he followed the woman across the tatami mat. "Please, listen to me!"

Misato had already started walking back towards the sleeping area, and didn't bother turning to address him.

"No," she said simply, standing in front of the sliding bedroom door. "I don't want to hear it. Get out of my quarters. That's an order."

Asuka hurried inside after him, holding back her reproach purely for the sake of not further agitating her Captain.

"You heard her, Shinji…" she said, expectantly.

"Wait!" Shinji said firmly, standing his ground. "Captain, what's gotten into you!? How could you just give up like this!? This isn't like you!"

Asuka took him by the arm, not wanting to let him piss the Captain off any further.

"Shinji, come on!"

Still not bothering to turn and face him, Misato slid the door to her sleeping area open.

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do, Shinji," she said dismissively, stepping into the other room. "Asuka, get him out of my sight!"

Asuka pulled his arm back towards the entrance.

"Shinji, you have been dismissed!" Asuka said definitively, as if that should have been enough to convince anyone to leave.

Shinji struggled against Asuka's grip, taking slow, determined steps back towards the now closed bedroom door.

"I don't care!" he shouted, trying to wrestle free of Asuka's grip. "I _want_ the old Misato back!"

"God damn it, Shinji!" Asuka growled, grabbing him by both arms. "If I have to _drag_ you out of here-!"

"Hold on!" Misato called out from behind the door, before sliding it open again, giving Shinji a cold, hard stare, and speaking in a threatening tone. "I didn't quite catch that, Shinji. Would you mind repeating yourself?"

Asuka let go of the boy, who pulled free of her grip and stood up straight again, facing Misato as she stepped out of her bedchamber to stand in front of him. The austerity of the Japanese stateroom around them made for a bizarre setting, the surrounding mantras on the wall foretelling of the battle on the verge of erupting between the two of them.

"You've done nothing but push me away since I got here, Captain," Shinji said, his face full of stubborn zeal. "But you _also_ agreed to let me pilot again! Even after everything I did, you _still_ chose to believe in me! The old Misato is still in there, Captain! I know she is!"

Asuka, for her part, wasn't exactly sure what he was getting at.

Misato, on the other hand, just glared.

"You piloting has nothing to do with _my_ wishes, Shinji," she glared darkly. "That was a decision that was forced upon me. _Don't_ mistake it for forgiveness."

Shinji looked fearfully at her. The animosity in her voice was unmistakeable. It was decorum and nothing else keeping her form lashing out at him right then.

Still, he knew if he didn't reach out to her now, he'd never get the opportunity to again.

"You could have had me killed at any time!" he said, swallowing hard as he stuck his neck, displaying his choker. "Back when Ayanami brought me to NERV. And after Asuka brought me back. You could have ended my life with the push of a button. But you haven't. Why?"

Misato gave him a look that suggested that any mercy she extended to him was on borrowed time.

"I'm only going to say this one more time, Shinji," she muttered, her eyes hidden behind her hair. "Do _not_ make the mistake of expecting forgiveness. The Misato that you remember is long since dead. Buried in the ashes of Tokyo-3."

She took a step closer to him, fists clenched.

"You made sure of that fourteen years ago."

Shinji hung his head, looking like he was suddenly on the verge of tears.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Captain," he muttered, shaking his head sadly, his fists clenched. "Is there nothing I can do to convince you that I didn't want this? I'm _still_ coming to terms with everything that's happened!"

He looked back at her, his gaze full of sorrow and hurt.

"I didn't want this hell any more than you did!" he cried. "I've lost my world too, Misato!"

Misato's eyes suddenly dilated as she inhaled sharply through her nostrils.

_That_ had been the last straw.

CRACK!

The back of Misato's fist came up to strike Shinji on the side of the head with an audible impact, sending him tumbling clear across the room.

"Ugh!" he grunted, landing hard on the tatami.

"Don't you _dare_!" Misato yelled, furiously.

"Colonel!" Asuka shouted in alarm, taking a single step forward, but not knowing who to help.

"Don't you _dare_ presume to have _any_ notion of what I've been through!" Misato continued, standing over Shinji's prone, writhing form. "You don't have _one fucking clue_ what it's been like for me! You haven't experienced a _fraction_ of hell yet, Shinji!"

She reached down and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him partially off the ground to look him in the eye.

"You have no _idea_ what loss is!" she raged at him.

Misato had the look of a madwoman, her breathing coming out in hard, ragged breaths, her whole face contorted into an enraged snarl. When Shinji had seen her for the first time after fourteen years, the difference in her demeanor had been striking. She had reminded him of a tiger, who wanted desperately to lunge after a tender piece of meat, and was only looking for the right moment to attack.

That moment had finally arrived.

As for Asuka, all she could do was stare in disbelief at what she was seeing. On the one hand, she agreed with everything Misato was saying. But on the other, if she didn't step in soon, she had a sinking feeling that Misato just might kill him. Had that been why the Doctor had sent her up with Shinji? To keep the violence from escalating to that point?

Then Shinji wiped the trickle of blood from the split in his lip that had reopened, and began to speak again in a tiny voice.

"Everyone…" he muttered slowly through clenched teeth, his eyes still closed, sounding somewhat dazed. "Everyone…I have _ever _known…has either died…or turned their back on me…"

His hands came up to form a tight grip around Misato's wrists as they held him, his eyes finally meeting hers.

"Even _you_!" he cried. "The _one_ person who used to _always_ have my back!"

Misato stood up, letting him fall back on his elbows, still staring up at her with that same, hurt expression.

"So don't _tell_ me I don't know about loss, Misato!" he shouted, tears streaming down his face. "Because I've lost everything I've ever known! You know that perfectly well!"

Misato stared at him like he was some kind of demon, taking a step back, before turning away, teeth clenched.

"Do you honestly expect to retain my trust after what you did?" she muttered in a low voice. "God _damn_ it…Shinji, just what do you expect me to _do_?"

She returned his gaze, her own pain showing through it.

"To tell you that everything will be alright now?" she asked, incredulously. "This isn't some fairy tale where everything can be fixed with an apology!"

Shinji slowly got to his feet, keeping his gaze on Misato as she broke down into tears.

"Do you even realize how hard it is not to _HATE _YOU!?" she screamed, reaching up to grab Shinji by the shoulders, leaning her face down to peer at him with tear-soaked eyes. "Do you have _ANY IDEA_ WHAT YOU _PUT ME THROUGH!?_"

Asuka was watching all of this unfold in astonishment. She had never seen the Captain bear her soul to anyone like this. Not in a _long_ time.

"Do you know _how_ many times I've had to relive that nightmare!?" Misato demanded, still crying. "Can you even _imagine_ what it's like to see your _entire world_ coming down around you every time you so much as close your eyes!?"

Misato was gasping for breath now, her age and exhaustion suddenly apparent as she trembled, her body still shaking with unbridled emotion.

"How _could_ you, Shinji?" Misato wept. "How could you do this to me? How could you put me through this nightmare and then come back after fourteen years and expect me to forgive you?"

Shinji was quivering in her arms, his breathing coming in small, trembling sobs.

"Before I met you, Misato…" he breathed. "I didn't have anything worth living for."

He looked up to stare at her with a look of sincerity on his face.

"Before I met you, I wouldn't have even _cared_ if the world had ended," he cried, sadly, echoing Ritsuko's words without realizing it. "But then you took me in! You gave me a home! A family!"

Misato's arms fell to her sides, her gaze still fixated on his. Unbidden, images of a forgotten life spun through her head.

"After you did, only _then_ was I even able to make a _single_ friend in this world!" he shouted, desperately. "But it all started because of you, Misato! Don't you understand? _You're_ the one who showed me that the world was worth fighting for!"

Misato slumped to one side as if she found it difficult to keep standing. She didn't want to remember him for who he was. The memories of their time together were just too painful!

"But if even _you_ can't believe in this world anymore…" Shinji sniffed, his face completely soaked with tears. "Then how the hell am_ I_ supposed to!?"

Misato sank to her knees, supporting herself on the table, a blank expression on her face. Her head was spinning, and she didn't know why.

"I _know_ an apology isn't going to cut it!" Shinji lowered his eyes, fists clenched. "I _know_ I've made a mess of everything!"

He dropped to his hands and knees to meet Misato's absent gaze once more.

"But I'm _trying_ to fix it, Misato!" he said, pleadingly. "I _have_ to fix it! There's nothing else left for me to do!"

He reached forward to take her hand in his. He encountered no resistance.

"But I can't fix it without you, Misato!" he sobbed, peering up at her with hope in his eyes. "I can't trust myself to do the right thing anymore! Not without someone there to guide me! Don't you understand? I _need_ you."

Misato slumped forward where she sat, a blank expression on her face, her breathing almost inaudible now. Shinji wasn't sure what he expected by pouring his heart out like that, but he hadn't expected a reaction like this. Confused by her appearance, he waited several moments more for a response, when Asuka suddenly came forward and knelt on one knee besides her.

"Captain…?" she placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Misato didn't respond.

"Captain?" Asuka said a little louder, shaking her gently, feeling absolutely no resistance in the woman's shoulders.

Shinji watched, perplexed as Asuka's pushed him aside to examine her, leaning in to peer into Misato's eyes, waving her hand in front of her face and eventually snapping her fingers, trying to get a response.

Finally she felt for a pulse.

Her one eye widened, and her hand went for her radio.

"This is Shikinami!" she blared, urgently. "I need a medical team up in the Captain's quarters, _now_!"

Only then did Shinji think to feel fear.

"Misato…?" he breathed, falling back into old habits as he crawled closer to her. "Misato!?"

Asuka did not even acknowledge the boy. She went to work, laying Misato onto her back, checking for other vital signs as best as she could. Shinji heard her muttering something into her radio about an abnormally low pulse, clammy skin and pupil dilation, as Shinji went over to kneel beside her, gazing fearfully down at her prone, unmoving body.

What had he done?

"_Misato!_"

* * *

A/N: Final dialogue inspired by The Last of Us.

Stay tuned.


	16. Chapter 15

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 15

* * *

Ritsuko was standing over Misato's bed in the medical wing, doing an examination. She had been there since yesterday, and still had not risen. Asuka, Mari and Shinji were standing behind her, the latter two of which still wore DSS chokers, watching the Captain's form with a concerned eye. A few beds over, Rei still slept, her hair still a darker blue than before, her skin inexplicably more tan in color than it had ever been, herself wearing a DSS choker of her own.

"What's wrong with her, Doctor?" Shinji asked after a time.

Ritsuko shined a pen-light into Misato's eye, before moving onto the next one.

"When she was first brought here yesterday, she was displaying all the symptoms of acute alcohol poisoning - heightened blood rate, dehydration, irregular breathing, hypothermia - and she was treated accordingly."

Ritsuko professionalism did little to disguise the concern in her voice.

"If that was all there was to it, however, she should have woken up by now," she said, closing her eyes. "My concern is that relapsing after so many years may have overwhelmed her system. I…"

Ritsuko's voice wavered. There was a lump forming at the back of her throat that was preventing her from speaking properly. If it was just a concern with intoxication, she wouldn't have been all too worried. But there was another concern that lingered at the back of her mind that had not voiced, nor would she.

For this was not the first time she had seen Misato in a state of self-induced catatonia.

"What do we do now?" Shinji asked, fearfully.

"What do you mean, 'what do we do now?'" Asuka asked incredulously. "We do _exactly_ what we've _been_ doing - preparing for the next attack!"

Shinji winced. He hadn't expected such a cold response from Asuka, but he supposed letting her concern for her Captain show through would not have been like her.

"I meant…" Shinji said, hesitantly. "I meant, what can we do for Misato?"

"There's nothing we can do now but wait…" Ritsuko said, turning away to put her stethoscope and other medical supplies into a Doctor's bag.

"With the Captain out of commission, not to mention having resigned yesterday, command of WILLE falls to the Vice Commander," Mari said simply.

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Asuka blurted angrily. "With Colonel Katsuragi out of the picture, you and Shinji get free reign of the facility!"

The conversation quickly devolved into an all-out shouting match.

"That's not what I was suggesting!"

"Oh please! You may put on a remorseful face, but you're totally thrilled about all this!"

"Asuka!"

"Sure, cause you've got me _totally_ figured out!"

"Oh, just admit it, Four-Eyes! This is just revenge for me busting you in the first place!"

"Don't flatter yourself, Princess! Seriously, do you even hear yourself anymore!? You've been accusing me of everything from espionage to stealing your lunch money since this all went down!"

"Makinami!"

"Then wipe that fucking smirk off your face, and maybe I'll go back to buying your bullshit!"

"Can we just calm down please!?"

"You keep painting me as this cold-hearted spy, Princess! But I'm just another pilot like you!"

"Oh please! You've been scheming and conniving since you got here! I bet you were just _waiting_ for something like this to-!"

"_STOP IT!_"

The last voice had been Ritsuko. She still had her back turned, and spoke with a voice so full of grief that it put the argument to a halt.

"I just…" the Doctor spoke haltingly, her voice shaky and disjointed. "I don't…I just…"

She lifted her arms and clenched them into frustrated fists.

"I can't _be_ a Commander right now…" she declared, on the verge of tears.

Only then did it become apparent to the other pilots how much she had been holding back, how much she had been holding in. She had kept herself objective and dispassionately rational for every major decision made since Shinji's return. But now, her best friend was lying on the brink of life and death, and the responsibility for her legacy was falling onto her shoulders, and she was confronted by the frightening realization that she now simply didn't know what to do.

"Dr. Akagi…" Shinji spoke up, the only one who dared voice their concern.

Ritsuko's shoulders sagged. She look like she was tired enough to drop where she stood. All she could think about was the first day she and Misato had meet, after she had survived the trauma of Second Impact. She had been nearly comatose, a recluse in her own mind. She had known, ever since that day, that Misato would carry that scar around with her forever.

"I can't do what Misato could do…" she stuttered. "She wasn't afraid to take chances if it meant victory. Me, I'm a rational thinker. If I see a clear path from point A to point B, I take it. But I don't…"

She placed her hands on the far wall, leaning into it as she hung her head.

"Misato's irrationally, her lateral thinking…_that_ was her greatest strength," she lamented. "But when it began to steer her off course, I…I saw no other choice but to step in. But now…now, we _need_ that irrationality of hers more than ever. Because now…"

She shook her head mournfully.

"I look at the situation we're in now…" she said tremulously. "And the rational part of me is telling me that we've already lost."

All three pilots watching the Doctor with growing trepidation. They had already lost one commanding officer, and it felt like they were about to lose a second one.

WILLE really was falling apart.

"The Spear of Cassius."

All eyes fell on a single, solitary voice that spoke up from the opposite side of the room. There, sitting up in her bed, her royal blue hair offset by burgundy eyes, was Rei Ayanami.

"Ayanami!" Shinji let out a relieved breath as he rushed over to her.

Asuka rolled her eyes at the display, while Mari put her hands on her hips.

"Hmmm…" she mused, eying the girl's new appearance. "Not a bad look for you, Miss Ayanami."

Ritsuko, still on the other side of the room, just looked stunned.

"What…did you just say…?"

"Ayanami!" Shinji pattered excitedly, clutching the handrails by her bed as he smiled at her. "Are you alright? What can you remember?"

She turned her head to offer him a strange look.

"I remember everything," she said in a voice that suggested that she could describe the moments after her birth in exhaustive detail.

Shinji's eyes widened. "Really? That's great!"

"Wait!" Ritsuko blurted, coming towards her after recovering her senses. "What did you say about the Spear of Cassius!?"

Rei looked at the Doctor.

"You created an artificial Spear of Cassius using the AT barrier surrounding Lilin Outpost Zion," she summarized. "Why not make use of it?"

Ritsuko shook her head in astonishment. "Rei, you…what the hell happened to you? How do you even _know_ about that?"

"I told you," Rei explained simply. "I remember everything."

Ritsuko took a nervous breath, eyes widening. That raised more questions than it answered, but she did not press any further. If Rei could recall all of that, what else could she recall? If what Rei said was true, then this had the potential to be highly beneficial…or devastatingly dangerous.

"Is that so?" she pursed her lips. She would have to watch what she said around the girl. "Well, the spear that we created dissipated only a few seconds after it struck. It's not a re-useable weapon."

"But you could make it again?" Rei asked.

"We could, but we'd be putting the entire base at risk by taking down our shields!" Ritsuko declared. "We _could_ use it to take out a single enemy, but it takes time to recharge the base's shields! We would be open to attack from any other enemies in the area! We nearly got taken unawares by just _two_ Evas last time! Next time, there are bound to be more!"

Rei nodded. "Indeed. So why not create one using the AAA Wunder instead?"

"The Wunder?" Ritsuko demanded, incredulously. "What are you talking about?"

"The same technique could theoretically be applied to the Wunder's AT Fields, could it not?" Rei explained simply. "Any AT Field should work in theory. It should actually be more powerful, as the Wunder's shields are not artificial as the outpost's are."

Ritsuko felt her hair getting grayer by the second.

"There's no _way_ you just casually overheard all this, Rei!" she said, flabbergasted. "How can you possibly know all this? What exactly happened to you back there?"

Rei blinked, turning her gaze to the palm of her hand.

"How _do_ I know all of this?" she asked in a whisper to herself. "My mind seems to have…expanded, somehow. It is as if the information is simply there for the taking…"

Rei turned to Shinji, offering him a strange look. Was it sadness? Or was she asking for forgiveness?

"The first time I conjoined, I was in an incorporeal state," she said simply, as if she was describing nothing more serious than taking a walk through the park. "I was fluid. Unconscious. Immaterial. The second time, however, I was awake. In the moment. I was aware of my every surrounding. It was…"

Rei seemed to struggle to find the right words.

"It was…painful…" she decided. "To encounter one's self, and then be made one with that plurality. Two perspectives of the same mind, suddenly seeing through the same eyes. Within the space of a moment, I witnessed my copy's memories in their entirety as she was unmade, while at the same time, she witnessed mine. The two experiences congealed into one, and as we joined, I saw…heard…felt…everything."

Shinji's eyes widened with each passing moment. Asuka and Mari were regarding the girl with something close to fear.

Ritsuko, however, was fascinated. Terror and elation mixed, and her scientific curiosity was piqued as it had never been.

"You have to tell me everything, Rei!" she said in excitement. "The information you might have gleamed during this process could be _crucial_ to our success!"

"That would take weeks, Doctor," Rei responded simply. "And we have only hours before the next attack comes."

"What?" Ritsuko demanded, panic growing in her voice. "How could you possibly…?"

If Rei was capable of passing off a sardonic expression, she was accomplishing it now.

Ritsuko drew in her breath. "You…remember everything. Even the memories of the Dummy Plug you absorbed?"

"Ayanami…" Shinji breathed fearfully.

It was unnerving to hear such words coming from Rei's lips. She did not sound like herself, and the idea of a Dummy Plug - the thing that had nearly destroyed Asuka in her own entry plug - being in any way associated within Rei didn't sit well with him at all.

Rei nodded. "The Dummy Plugs share a linked mind, Doctor. Their memories are one and the same. As such, I can give you a rough estimate of their whereabouts and immediate destination, within a certain margin of error. My link with them is incomplete, but that will be easy enough to remedy before long. I doubt that the next time I am conjoined, it shall not be as painful."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ritsuko held her hands up. "'Next time?' You expect us to send you out there to pull a stunt like that _again_?"

"It is the most logical option," Rei claimed, as if to do otherwise befuddled her. "With each of the Eva Series the Wunder consumes, the stronger it becomes, and the more accurately I will be able to predict our enemy's movements."

"Rei, it is going to take days, maybe weeks of investigation just to figure out if you're still _you__!_" Ritsuko shook her head. "We have no idea what's happening to you _or_ the ship! And furthermore, we have only your word to go on. How do I know the Dummy Plug hasn't taken over your thoughts already? How do I know the ship is even still safe to fly? For all I know, your advice would have us playing right into NERV's hands. I'm not launching the Wunder until I've completed a full examination of both the ship _and_ you."

"I am afraid that we have time for neither, Doctor," Rei responded simply. "Right now, the Wunder represents WILLE's greatest weapon. You can either make use of it, or allow WILLE to be destroyed at the hands of the enemy. The choice is yours."

"Doctor!" Asuka protested. "You're not seriously considering trusting this…this _mutant_, are you?"

Shinji winced in sympathy at her scorn. "Asuka…"

But in truth, he too was hesitant. He was not used to Rei being so…resolved. So resolute. So confident in her knowledge that she she would actually try to convince her superiors to change their mind about something.

This was not the Rei he had known before. This felt like something more than a simple boost in resolve. Her entire attitude towards her peers, towards WILLE, and towards the world seemed to have shifted. This Rei had all the poise of a confident, knowledgeable adept. She spoke with conviction and purpose. She did not merely question the world around her, she sought to act upon it.

With each passing moment, he felt the girl he knew drifting further and further away. And he did not know if he could still trust this Rei as he had the Rei he had been growing close to thus far.

Rei turned towards the other girl. "Your mistrust is understandable, Captain Shikinami. If we had the luxury of time, I would submit myself to the thorough scrutiny of WILLE. I will be perfectly willing to do just that after the battle ahead, but in the meantime, we must prepare."

She turned her gaze back towards Ritsuko.

"We have precious little time."

Ritsuko chewed on the tongue. She really wished Misato were there to advise her. Though, knowing her, she would say that this was the craziest idea they've heard yet. Knowing her Captain, she couldn't have said if that would have been a deal breaker, however.

She turned her gaze back to Misato's sleeping form. Her heart monitor still beeped slowly by her bedside, as her chest slowly rose and fell with each steady breath.

Ritsuko sighed. Rei may very well have been giving them a genuine warning. But she could have also been setting them up for a trap. She couldn't ignore this. But she didn't have to commit to anything until she had all the facts. The best course of action, she determined, was to put themselves in the best position possible to respond to either circumstance.

She made her decision.

"Battle stations, everyone," she said, standing up straight. "Shinji, you and Rei get to the Wunder, but do _not_ get into the entry plug or anywhere _near_ Unit 01 until I give the signal. Is that clear?"

Both pilots nodded and began to file out the door.

"Yes ma'am!" they said in unison.

Ritsuko turned her attention to the other two.

"Asuka, Mari, get to the JA launch bays and make sure our platoons are ready to launch within the hour."

Asuka rolled her eyes as she sauntered towards the door, with Mari following close behind.

"I'm telling you, we're wasting our time here."

Asuka's path was suddenly blocked by Ritsuko arm as the Doctor planted her hand against the wall.

"What would you have me do, Asuka?" she demanded. "Ignore this outright? What's happened here is unprecedented, and we can't take the chance that what she's saying might be the truth."

Asuka crossed her arms, unimpressed. "And if it's a trap?"

"How would they trap us?" Ritsuko demanded. "I'm not letting Rei anywhere near the Wunder's core until I see the Eva Series on the horizon."

"That could be exactly what NERV wants!" Asuka protested. "You heard her, Doctor! She can hardly wait to absorb another core!"

"Well, we can hardly hope to win by sending more JA units to their destruction," Ritsuko said, exasperated. "The Wunder's the only viable weapon we have against the Eva Series!"

"Why?" Asuka demanded. "Because it _might_ be able to fabricate a Lance of Cassius?"

"The theory behind it has been shown to work," Ritsuko replied. "It's just a matter of scaling it down. Within the time constraints, I believe I can make it happen."

"Doctor, we risk losing the ship if this thing backfires!" Asuka said tersely.

"What's the alternative, Asuka?" Ritsuko demanded. "Until we repair your Eva, and you and Mari learn to put aside your differences and sync properly with each other, _this_ would have been the game plan either way! Now get to your battle stations! That's an order!"

She withdrew her arm from the wall, letting Asuka and Mari pass.

"Yes ma'am," Asuka grumbled.

* * *

Unfortunately for Shinji, there was very little for him to do while they waited to see if Rei's prediction came true. While Asuka and Mari mobilized their JA units, and Dr. Akagi got to work on the Wunder's AT projector, Shinji and Rei weren't allowed to leave the ship, nor were they permitted anywhere near the ship's core. Normally he would have spent this time with Rei, but he wasn't as comfortable with this new Rei as he was with her predecessor. Not wanting to risk the awkwardness of an encounter with her, he tried finding someplace secluded to hide away that wasn't his bunk, and after a time, found himself on the top deck of the Wunder.

Shinji clutched the handrails to keep from being blown overboard. The updraft of wind at that altitude made it chilly in spite of the unseasonably hot post-Impact weather, even this far north. The ship lay docked at a berth erected along the edge of the base, though most of the outer military rim of the outpost did not stretch as high as the Wunder itself, leaving Shinji with a spectacular view of the deck's surroundings. The deck itself was restricted to the ship's main body, which did not include the twin pontoons or most of the tail. The Wunder's wings stretched out half a kilometer in either direction, each obscured from his view by two sets of massive turrets, its wingtips fanning out like a bird's primary feathers. Towards the rear, three massive relay dishes loomed overhead along the ship's pontoons and tail, and higher above still were two massive construction cranes extending up from the dry dock, used for ship repairs, loading cargo, mecha, and assisting with casting off the ship itself.

"You're a hard guy to keep track of, Shinji Ikari," came a voice.

Shinji turned to see Second Lieutenant Suzuhara crawling out of the entry hatch that he had climbed up to get there.

"Oh…" he muttered, not expecting company. "Sorry…"

Sakura smiled encouragingly as she stood up on the deck and let the hatch swing shut. "Not a problem. I just worry about you."

Shinji let out a sigh and looked away. "I'm not the one you should be worrying about."

The wind kicked up, and Sakura had to hold her hair back to keep it from blowing in her face.

"You worried about the Captain?" she asked, stepping over to lean against the handrail next to him.

"How could I not worry?" he asked, hopelessly. "She only got sick cause she exhausted herself arguing with me. I shouldn't have bothered her. If I hadn't-"

"If you hadn't, she would have still likely passed out from alcohol poisoning, just a little later that evening," Sakura explained simply.

While rest of the crew hadn't been privy to the exact circumstances behind the Captain's condition, Sakura was a medical officer first and foremost, and with Ritsuko's heavy reliance on her, she had heard more than enough to gleam just what ailed their erstwhile Captain.

"You being there meant that someone was able to call for help when it was needed," she reasoned. "If you hadn't been there, she could have died in her sleep. You very well may have saved her life, Shinji."

Shinji drew in a breath. He hadn't thought of it that way.

"Well…" he muttered, still disheartened. "She's still not waking up. Dr. Akagi doesn't know what's wrong her. And the Doctor is taking on more and more of the burden for her. I don't know how long she can keep this up."

Sakura nodded with a sigh. "Dr. Akagi is an amazing person, but even she has limits. I sure hope the Captain wakes up soon. I can't let myself believe she will stay resigned forever."

Shinji shuddered. He knew it wasn't from the cold. "I hope not."

Sakura pursed her lips as an uncomfortable silence descended upon them.

"I, um…" she said, looking for conversation material. "I heard that Ayanami has woken up. That's a good to hear."

Shinji pulled his arms even more tightly around himself.

"She's different now," he muttered, listlessly. "Dr. Akagi thinks that she's merged with one of the Dummy Plugs. I don't know what happened to her, but she's not the same anymore. I don't…I don't think the Ayanami I remember is ever coming back."

Sakura frowned. It seemed that everything she brought up was only sapping his spirits.

"Have you considered…" she said, searching for a silver lining, "That the Ayanami that you knew was only one small part of the whole thing?"

Shinji blinked in surprise. Rei had been one huge conundrum since the day he'd known her, so while nothing was so out of the ordinary as to be impossible, he could not have nearly thought of every possible explanation.

"Each of these Dummy Plugs is derived from one of her clones, right?" Sakura reasoned, before holding her hands up, embarrassed. "I mean, I know that's classified intel and all, but come on, people talk."

Shinji shrugged. It made no difference to him.

"But yeah," Sakura went on, looking away. "What if every time she takes in one of these Dummy Plugs, she becomes more and more of a complete person? More like the person she was originally meant to be?"

Shinji closed his eyes. All this talk was beginning to hurt his head.

"I mean, she wasn't _exactly_ like she was when you first knew her, even after she got her memories back, right?" Sakura reasoned. "Even if she could remember your time together, her personality was _kind of_ different from the way you remembered it, right?"

Shinji had to stop himself from crying. While he hadn't wanted to admit it, he _had_ noticed a difference in her behavior from their time together before Third Impact. He had chalked it up to her traumatic experiences, but taking that into consideration, what Sakura was saying _did_ make a certain twisted kind of sense. But if that was the case, then…that meant that the person that he had known in Tokyo-3 had never been the real Ayanami in the first place.

"I don't know, Sakura," he said, bitterly. "I just don't know. I just…"

He hung his head. The tears had finally won the battle.

"I just wish things could go back to the way they were before," he sobbed.

Sakura put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Me too, Shinji," she said, sadly. "I'd do anything to get my brother back."

Being reminded of Toji only increased the burden on Shinji's frail shoulders, and he closed himself off even more.

Sakura saw this and moved her hand to his opposite shoulder, squeezing him tightly to her.

"There's nothing left for us in the past, Shinji," she said resolutely. "Once you've learned all you can from it, there's no point in holding onto memories that only bring pain. Let them go. You're only hurting yourself by keeping them so close."

Sakura closed her eyes. Once, she had thought Shinji to be the harbinger of humanity's doom. But that was before she had gotten to know him. And while his actions may have indeed brought about catastrophe, Sakura could not bring herself to believe that someone who cared so much for others over himself would voluntarily seek out the destruction of mankind, no matter how misguided. She knew just how persuasive NERV could be, knew how if repeated often enough, a lie could be construed as truth. But Shinji was here with WILLE now, and with their guidance, Shinji could be a force for good. She knew it.

"I believe in you, Shinji Ikari," she said, determination and strength in her voice. "I don't know how much that's worth to you, but I believe in you. Please, don't give up on us."

Shinji let out a sigh.

"Right now, Asuka and Makinami are preparing to go to war using tools that are completely inadequate for the task," he croaked grimly. "Misato's been struggling so hard through this war that she's fallen ill, Dr. Akagi's doing the jobs of four people, and even _you_ are going above and beyond your duty just to keep _me_ on my feet."

Sakura had to smile at that. "It was about time someone did something nice for you."

Shinji shook his head. "You've all been fighting so hard for so long. You're the strongest people I've ever known. I could never give up on _you_."

He turned and looked at her with tear soaked eyes.

"It's _me_ I don't believe in," he said, sadly. "It's _me_ who's holding everyone back."

Sakura held him tighter.

"Shinji…" she said softly, "Maybe we haven't been acting like it, but you have it worse than any of us. You've got the greatest burdens riding on your shoulders, and to top it all off, everyone foists their anger off on you because of Third Impact. It's unfair of us to expect so much from you after everything you've been put through, but we have no choice, Shinji. Like it or not, we need you."

Shinji wiped his eyes dry, and tried to look strong.

"I'll try not to fail you again…" he promised.

"That's all I can ask, Shinji," Sakura smiled.

They stood there for another moment, before the hatch swung open behind them, its creaking hinges grabbing their attention. As they turned to see, they saw Rei Ayanami's royal blue hair and soft burgundy eyes peeking up from the entrance. She was already wearing her black plug suit.

"Dr. Akagi has summoned us," she reported bluntly. "We are needed below deck."

Shinji pulled himself out of Sakura's embrace awkwardly, wondering idly if Dr. Akagi had specifically sent her to find him.

"Alright…" he said, not knowing what else to do.

"Ayanami," Sakura called out, throwing a casual arm around Shinji's shoulder. "You care about Shinji, right?"

Shinji's eyes widened to saucers. "Wh-what!?"

Rei looked completely unperturbed. "Yes, Lieutenant. Will you come below deck?"

Shinji tried to tug himself free of Sakura's grip, but the older girl was still stronger than he was, not to mention military trained.

"And you'd agree that it's safe to say he cares about you too, right?" she asked, almost playfully.

Shinji gave her an alarmed look. "S-Sakura!"

Rei seemed almost annoyed by the question.

"Yes, of course," she agreed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Will you come below deck now, please?"

Sakura grinned, triumphantly.

"There, you see Shinji?" she smiled, patting him on the back, sending him stumbling towards the hatch. "What more do you need than that?"

Shinji caught his footing just in time to keep from running into Ayanami, though by the time he stopped himself, he was hunched over almost literally eye to eye with her.

"Gah!" he recoiled. "Ayanami!"

She did not seem to react to his embarrassment. "Come Shinji. Time is wasting."

He watched her head disappeared below the hatch, before re-emerging to stare back at him again.

"And for the sake of expediency," she said brusquely, "You may refer to me as Rei from now on."

Shinji blinked in surprise. He had barely registered her using his first name, but he had _always_ called her Ayanami. It would truly feel like he was addressing a different person if even that were to change.

Then her eyes turned away, but she did not descend back into the hatch right away.

"That is, if you wish," she added.

Shinji could have been mistaken, but he could have sworn her now pink cheeks had gotten a touch pinker just then.

"Alright…" he said dumbly, not knowing what else to say. "Rei…"

Rei nodded, and disappeared down the hatch without saying another word.

Shinji, blinking and confused, could only follow after her.

Sakura smiled. Maybe there was hope for Shinji after all.

* * *

Ritsuko, Asuka and Mari were already waiting by the time Shinji and Rei arrived in the briefing room. Dr. Akagi was once again wearing her fur parka, now that she was back aboard the Wunder. The briefing room was small, just a row of chairs seated before a projector screen, upon which a diagram of Zion and its surrounding environs appeared. The eastern and southern areas of the map were almost completely covered by water.

"Good, you're here," Ritsuko said brusquely from the front of the room as the last two pilots entered. "Time is short, so I'll get started right away."

Asuka and Mari were already seated a noticeable distance from each other, so Shinji and Rei quietly made their way to the seats in between.

"Our fleet fanned out with its scan to ascertain Rei's warning," Ritsuko clicked a device in her hands, and three red blips arranged in a triangular arrow formation appeared in the blue lower region. "Patrol boats have detected three energy signatures moving in from the southern coastline. They're still many miles out, but they are approaching at speed, and are estimated to make landfall inside the hour."

The three other pilots threw a glance at Rei, some more surreptitiously than others.

Rei simply cleared her throat. "I hope this alleviates at least some of your suspicions."

Asuka pursed her lips. "We'll see…"

Ritsuko thumbed her clicker and proceeded to the next graphic, which zoomed in towards the base, which was represented by a the symbol of WILLE surrounded by a circle. A short distance away from the base, the three red blips representing the invading Eva Series stood, just inside the blue.

"We know we can neutralize at least one of the Eva Series with the experimental Cassius weapon," Ritsuko went on. "The problem is that it takes time to recharge after uses. The last time we used it, it took the base upwards of twenty minutes for its AT barrier to come back online. Logically, that means that we want to use it on the enemy when they are still some distance from the base. But of course, the accuracy of the weapon decreases with distance. And with obstacles and the curvature of the Earth, there is a limit to its effective range."

Ritsuko prompted a red line to appear between the closest blip and the base.

"We won't be able to target the enemy from here until they make landfall," she went on. "Even if we take one out with the first shot, the other two will be on top of us before we can recharge. At least, hypothetically."

Shinji pursed his lips at that. "Hypothetically?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Zion will strike the first target as soon as the Eva's make landfall. At the same time, the Wunder will attempt to neutralize the other two units simultaneously with a Cassius strike of its own."

An image appeared on the screen of a silhouette of the Wunder flying in from the side, a single red line extending from the Wunder's nose to hit the blip on the right.

"Simultaneously?" Asuka asked incredulously. "You actually think the Wunder can pull this off?"

Ritsuko nodded. "It's just a matter of focusing the AT field projector into a single point. The effect is a vector weapon that has an effect similar to that of the Lance of Cassius, hence the name. It's essentially the same type of energy that the Angels used for their energy attacks - a projection of their AT fields into an offensive weapon."

Ritsuko thumbed the switch again, and the projector displayed the two red vectors extending from both the outpost and the ship, forming a criss-cross shape that went through all three targets, the lead in the middle from the front, and the two remaining targets from the side.

"As Rei said," Ritsuko explained, "The Wunder's shields are even stronger than those of the base, such that a Cassius weapon forged from them will hit with far more penetrating power. It should be more than enough to destroy two Eva Series."

Asuka crossed her arms. "And what about our JA units?"

Ritsuko nodded. "You'll be our backup in case any part of this plan fails. We want these two attacks to go off simultaneously to prevent a counterattack. The Wunder's shields will come down as well after it discharges its Cassius weapon, so be ready. The ship will be vulnerable to attack after we fire that first shot. If either the base or the ship fails to hit their targets, it'll be up to you two and your platoons to buy us as much time as possible for us to recharge and try again."

Asuka sat back and grumbled. "Great."

Mari smiled. "Cheer up, Princess! Unit 02+08 is nearly complete, thanks to all the spare parts we salvaged from the last Eva we took down. If we take down these three, we'll have parts aplenty!"

"Thanks, Four-Eyes," Asuka rolled her eyes. "That just fills me with confidence."

Ritsuko pressed on. "Do each of you understand your roles in this?"

All four pilots nodded, some more grudgingly than others.

"Very good then," Ritsuko nodded. "I want-"

She was halted by a chime from the walkie-talkie at her hip.

"Akagi here," she said, bringing it to her ear.

Her eyes suddenly flew open.

"Are you sure!?" she demanded, before pausing. "Yes, of course. I'll be right there."

The pilots fixed her with expectant expressions as she clipped the radio back to her belt.

The doctor gazed back at them with a stupefied look in her eyes.

"It's the Captain," she said simply. "She's awake."

* * *

To be continued…


	17. Chapter 16

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Chapter 16

* * *

As adamant as Shinji had been to see Misato, Ritsuko would not allow Shinji to leave the Wunder with the enemy so close at hand. If necessary, Ritsuko could issue orders to the Wunder from the base, but the Wunder would not fly without both Shinji and Rei present, so the two of them needed to be kept on board. So as the scaffolding launch pad elevator going from the Wunder to the docking level of Outpost Zion ferried Asuka and Mari down to the JA launch bay, Ritsuko parted ways at the bottom to hurry back to the medical wing.

After rushing through corridors, more elevators, twists and turns, not to mention several lengthy people-movers that spanned the circumference of the facility, Ritsuko burst through the doors of the medical wing, completely out of breath, to find Misato sitting up in her bed, with Lieutenant Commander Ibuki giving her a checkup.

Maya stood and saluted when Ritsuko entered.

"Ma'am!" she snapped professionally.

Misato turned her head to see, her eyes blinking as she focused on the doctor, before smiling.

"Ritsuko…"

Ritsuko's relief at seeing her friend awake was palpable. Nodding quickly to Maya, she rushed towards the bed, nearly collapsing on the chair Maya had been occupying just a moment ago.

"Misato!" she gasped, eyes watering, taking the Captain's hand in hers.

Despite her forty-three years of age, Misato Katsuragi had never lacked for vitality. She had been a near constant source of energy, the strong center around which all of WILLE had revolved. Now, however, for the first time, Misato's breathing sounded heavy, as if she were feeling the weight of the world with every breath. Her eyes hung languidly open, her hair hanging loosely around her face, unwashed and brittle. Her lips were chapped from the gastric lavage used to purge her system of toxins, and her skin looked rather pallid overall. The pale hospital gown did nothing to disguise how thin she had become over the years, her unwashed, unmade face was beginning to betray her age.

Despite her condition, however, Misato was still smiling.

"Ritsuko…" she sighed somberly. "What are you doing here?"

Ritsuko's face was a collage of emotions. Grief and guilt mixed with relief and joy as she stared back at her friend, her eyes already going over the minute examination details that Maya had already no doubt recorded.

"Misato…" she breathed, resting her forehead against the hand she clutched between her own, too many emotions swirling around inside her for words to convey. "God damn it, don't _ever_ do anything like that again!"

The Captain offered a guilty expression. "Sorry to scare you, Doctor."

Ritsuko let out another breath, before throwing an apologetic look in Maya's direction.

"Could you…give us a few moments?"

Maya's expression softened, as she nodded.

"Yes ma'am."

Ritsuko watched her step outside the door, before turning a more serious look in Misato's direction.

"I…" she whispered, on the verge of tears. "I don't know how to even _begin_ to apologize…"

Misato took a breath, closing her eyes as the air filled and left her lungs.

"What's the situation?"

Ritsuko blinked in surprise.

"M…ma'am?" she stuttered, not sure whether to refer to her by title of first name.

Misato's expression turned serious.

"Ibuki said you were briefing the pilots," she said simply. "There's obviously _something_ going on. My guess is that we're about to be attacked, right?"

Ritsuko nodded, unable to think of any other response.

"Do you have a plan?" Misato asked, simply.

Ritsuko nodded again.

"Good," Misato smiled, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "Then I'm going to need my uniform. You can brief me on the way."

Ritsuko blinked in utter stupefaction.

"Captain!" she gasped in astonishment. "You've can't seriously mean to take command again so soon after recovering!?"

Misato gave her a wry smile, before slowly rising to her feet. Despite her worn and weary condition, the determination on Misato's face made her look like the strongest thing that had ever lived.

"Are you going to try and stop me?" she smirked.

Ritsuko drew in her breath. Misato was being serious!

"As your doctor, I can't possibly recommend it!" she stated simply.

Misato fixed the woman with a long, knowing stare, in which neither spoke for a time. Ritsuko had always known just what to say to the Captain to coax the desired response from her, but now, she was completely lost for words. If anything, it was proving that the reverse was now true.

The corner of Ritsuko's lips flitted upward.

"But…as your friend and comrade, I could really use your help right now," she said, letting a nervous laugh escape her lips.

Misato nodded her head definitively. "Good. Now where's my uniform?"

Ritsuko glanced at a coat rack by the door, laden with a familiar set of black and red clothes, a pair of boots sitting underneath.

Misato went over to it and yanked off her hospital gown, leaving only a plain set of cream colored undergarments beneath.

"Captain," Ritsuko chimed in, her cautious nature getting the better of her. "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

Misato tugged her pants over her legs. "As sure as I am about anything, Doctor. You were perfectly ready to lead the troops into battle just now, right?"

Ritsuko shrugged in exasperation. "Yes…in a manner of speaking."

Misato pulled her tank top over her head. "Well, that's good enough for me. I'm going to trust your judgement on this."

Pulling her turtleneck over her head, she threw a glance back at Ritsuko.

"I only ask one thing in return, Ritsuko," she said somberly as she tugged her boots on, pausing as she spoke. "I need _you_ to trust _me_ too."

Ritsuko just blinked, not understanding.

"Ma'am?"

"I need you to keep me informed," Misato said as she laced up her boots. "Let me know what you're thinking. None of this sneaking around my back business. If you see a path from point A to point B, then _tell_ me, and tell me straight. Give me your best assessment, and I _promise_ you, I will listen to what you have to say."

She pulled on her red Captain's coat.

"As long as you promise to listen to _me_ too."

Ritsuko was awestruck by the Captain's resolve. How quickly she had reconciled everything that had happened between them. What exactly had been going through her head while she had laid unconscious on that hospital bed?

Misato finally grabbed her Captain's hat from the top of the coat rack, pulled her hair back into the semblance of a ponytail, and tugged her hat securely in place.

"Are you with me, Ritsu?"

Ritsuko drew in a breath.

Now she was sounding like the Misato that she remembered.

"Aye-aye, ma'am!"

* * *

Shinji and Rei sat in an uneasy silence within the entry plug of Unit 01.

The Evangelion lay wrapped in an ovaloid turbine that served as the engine within the ship's belly. With the ship's AT drive offline, the frontal lobe of the core slid back, exposing the Eva's head and neck to the mechanical arm that ferried the entry plug from the Eva's entry port to the catwalk surrounding the core. There, the pilots had to climb in and out of the plug via a ladder and platform which had very recently been built into the catwalk. It was a very rough and unpolished system that had been cobbled together for the purposes of making a serviceable entry system. Over the past week or so, Shinji and Rei had undergone substantial training simply with egress and ingress procedures in order to make the process as fluid as possible under the circumstances.

Another significant portion of their training was standard sync training, with two major differences - the tests took place within the Eva directly, and the synchronization was taking place as much between Shinji and Rei as it was between either pilot and the Eva.

But while the two of them were sufficiently in sync to get the Wunder airborne, Shinji did not feel confident in his ability to take control of the Wunder in combat.

Not with this particular girl at the helm.

"Shinji?"

Shinji flinched. It would take some time to get used to her calling him by his first name.

"Uh, yeah?"

The girl in front of him turned her head back to peer at him.

"We are not synchronizing as we once were," she noted simply.

Shinji winced. "Oh…sorry…"

"Have I become so unfamiliar to you since my conjoining?" she asked bluntly. "Can you not see that I am the same person as before?"

Shinji did not want to be having this conversation now. Though frankly, he did not want to be having this conversation ever, truth be told.

"I'm sorry, Ayanami…" he repeated without thinking.

"Rei," she insisted.

"What?"

"I have already told you," she said patiently. "You may refer to me as Rei. You refer to Pilot Shikinami and Second Lieutenant Suzuhara by their first names. Why not I?"

Shinji set his teeth. "See, that's…sort of what's bothering me."

She blinked. "You do not wish to call me by my given name?"

"No," Shinji said, before thinking about it. "Well, yes, but that's only a small part of it. The part that _really_ bothers me is that…well…before your…'conjoining,' it would not have mattered to you one way or another. The Rei I remember never would have questioned her superiors the way you did_. _Hell, I don't think I've ever seen you so much as make a suggestion before."

Rei gave him a peculiar look. "So, the fact that I have opinions bothers you?"

Shinji suddenly backpedaled. "What? No, no, no! That's not what I meant at all!"

"Then what is it, Shinji?" she asked, not irritated but definitely challenging in her tone. "Is it merely the fact that I give voice to these opinions now? Did you prefer me when I would silently accept the world around me in quiet conformity?"

Shinji wished he could hide under a rock. This was not going the way he wanted it to at all.

"I'm just…not used to seeing you act like this…" he muttered, turning his eyes away in shame. "I don't think it's a _bad thing_, to voice your opinions. If anything, it's a good thing. Maybe now, everyone will start giving you the respect you deserve."

He pursed his lips.

"But it's just not…familiar to me," he admitted. "The 'you' that I remember never acted this way. You were always quiet. Reserved. More like…more like _me_, I guess. And I found it comforting to be around someone I could relate to."

"I see…" Rei said.

She was quiet for a while. All around them, the pre-launch flight check was proceeding as the Wunder prepared to take to the air. Behind them, the circular layout of Outpost Zion appeared oval shaped from their perspective. And all around them, the AT barrier lay, protecting them from danger. A section of it would come down briefly to allow the ship to pass, before raising again to begin charging the Cassius weapon.

The silence became too uncomfortable for Shinji.

"Well, um…" Shinji muttered, weakly. "Sakura had the idea that…maybe each of these clones and Dummy Plugs represented a different part of you. And that as more of them came together, the more…well…'complete' you became."

Rei was silent for a moment more before speaking.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Shinji shook his head.

"I don't like the idea that the person I knew before wasn't complete to begin with," he said, his voice small but adamant. "There was nothing wrong with the Rei Ayanami that I knew before. I liked her just the way she was."

Rei was silent again for a time before speaking.

"I'm afraid you are mistaken, Shinji," she said, her voice sounding sorrowful. "There were a great many things wrong with the Rei that you knew. She…I…was merely adept at hiding them."

Shinji nodded. That he could believe.

"I always looked up to you," he smiled, childishly. "Living with such pain, and never letting it show. I wish I could have been as strong as you sometimes."

Rei shook her head. "Hiding your pain is not strength, Shinji."

He winced. He knew that to be true, and he was a fool for suggesting otherwise. But that still did not change the fact that he had admired her courage.

"May I offer another perspective?" Rei asked.

"Um…alright," Shinji said.

Again, he was not used to Rei volunteering her thoughts so freely. It was not that he was disinterested in what her mind contained, but he was thrown off balance by the frequency with which she now revealed her views. The Rei he knew had always been a creature of few words. But when pushed, she would certainly speak. And what came out of her mouth, while not always making sense, could be downright profound at times. But it was the rarity with which these observations came out that made them so significant. To speak with such regularity almost seemed to diminish the value of what was spoken.

Though perhaps, he was merely over-analyzing things.

"Do you know what amphetamines are?" Rei asked him.

Shinji blinked. If he had to guess a direction the conversation was headed, chemistry would not have been the first topic to spring to mind.

"They're a…type of drug, aren't they?"

"Yes," Rei said. "A stimulant. Now let me ask you…"

She actually stood up in her seat, turning around to look at him more fully. The burgundy color of her eyes had not diminished the piercing edge to her stare, and Shinji found that he could not meet her gaze.

"Would you agree with the assessment that you are a shy person, Shinji?" Rei asked, bluntly. "That for every thought you give voice to, there are dozens that remained contained within, hidden from the world?"

Shinji, still unable to look her in the eye, simply nodded.

Rei observed him passively.

"I was very much the same way, as you have said," she said. "Reserved. Introverted. Reticent."

She stepped off her chair to one side of the entry plug, slowly climbing up towards him.

"In spite of your shyness, however, if you were simply to consume a stimulant such as an amphetamine, you would not be able to contain your thoughts," she said as she approached him. "You would speak whatever thought came to your mind, regardless of whatever reservation held them back before. You would be exuberant. Verbose. You would not behave the way that others have grown to expect of you."

She was right next to him now, her hands resting on the frontal part of his control yokes.

"However, despite this altered perception, you will not have fundamentally changed," she explained. "The thoughts coming forth would still be your own. You would still be Shinji, just a Shinji who displayed a different side of himself."

She loomed ever closer to him, and now Shinji could do anything _but_ look away, his eyes transfixed upon hers as they neared his.

"Look at me Shinji," she asked, though he already was. "Am I honestly so different now?"

Shinji was frozen in place as she put her hands on his shoulders, holding him where he was. He couldn't answer her.

"Before, I was adrift in a turbulent wind," she continued. "I received my orders and I obeyed them to the best of my ability. I had my thoughts, I had my opinions, and I had my desires. But they remained private. Orders came first, and I obeyed."

Shinji wanted to pull away. He wanted to be let out of the entry plug. He wanted to hide under a rock. He felt completely powerless in her grasp, though her hands were not gripping him all that tightly. He had felt _less_ unnerved when he had been beaten to within an inch of his life in the hallways of the Wunder. He had never felt so trapped, so vulnerable, as he did right at that moment.

"But now, after all this time, I finally feel as though I have a purpose, Shinji," Rei went on. "It is a purpose that drives me to action, whether I wish it or not. My inclinations, for the first time, have conviction behind them. The thoughts dwelling within me that would have once remained unvoiced can be silent no longer."

Shinji trembled. Her face was inches from his now.

"I am still Rei Ayanami," she said, her voice a hushed tone. "I am still possessed by all her memories, all her intentions, and all her feelings. These feelings that had once remained sequestered have been driven to the surface. These memories that had once been no more than a learning device now bring me joy and sorrow. These intentions, once secondary to the order of my maker, are now an unstoppable force that drive me to act."

Shinji's heart was pounding in his chest as she hovered over him, her deep, dark eyes gazing down at him, the heat from her body washing over him. It was impossible for his imagination not to get the better of him, and his cheeks colored brightly.

"I have but one purpose now, Shinji," she breathed, her voice little more than a whisper. "One reason for fighting. One wish for which I strive to see fulfilled. It is what drives me to speak out. It is what drives me to preserve humanity, even above my own kin. It is what drives me to save this world. Everything that I do now, I do for this one purpose."

Rei's hands came up to clasp his face. She was almost upon him. Shinji's pulse had risen so high that he was starting to get dizzy.

"What…" he breathed, before swallowing. "What is that?"

Rei's smile was a subtle one, a slight curve of the lips that would have eluded any but whoever found themselves in such close proximity.

"You, Shinji," she breathed. "Your happiness. Your well being. _You_ are my amphetamine, Shinji. You are what drives me to act. Perhaps I _am_ a more complete person now. This feeling, this drive, this purpose has lingered within me ever since the day we first fought together. But only now am I free to act upon it."

Her lips drew dangerously close to his.

"And I should like to do so…"

That's when a face popped up on his screen.

"Shinji?" Misato inquired.

Shinji suddenly sat bolt upright, nearly throwing Rei off of him in the process.

"Misato!" he blared in stunned surprise, his blood running cold with terrified adrenaline. "I…I-I…"

Misato's expression did not change as she tapped the symbol on the front of her hat.

"It's still 'Captain,' you know?" she corrected gently.

Shinji nodded vehemently. "Y-Yes! Of course, I…"

His eyes suddenly widened as he realized who he was talking to.

"Captain!" he shouted in exuberance. "You're awake!"

"Very astute," Misato said dryly. "Now wrap up whatever it is you two are doing in there, cause we need you take control of the Wunder."

Shinji blushed at the insinuation, before blinking in surprise, looking around. The entry plug around him revealed the ship's surroundings, and he realized that they were already in mid-flight! The southern coast loomed just off in the distance, and the ground moved steadily beneath them.

He hadn't even noticed the ship take off!

"R-Right!" he bumbled, grabbing hold of the controls. "Ayanami, are you…?"

He had been about to ask if she was ready, but as he looked around, he suddenly realized that the blue haired girl wasn't where he had last seen her. Looking down, he saw that she had once again taken her seat below him.

"I told you," the girl said simply. "You may call me Rei."

"We're going to be counting on you a lot for this mission, Rei," Misato said through her own view screen below. "In order to execute a simultaneous kill, you will need to fly in at precisely the right angle. Line up the two rear targets so that both centers of mass are in the same line of fire."

"Yes ma'am," she replied.

"The bridge will take care of activating the Cassius weapon," Misato said. "We'll open fire at the same time as Zion fires on the third target. But once we do, the ship will be vulnerable to attack. If we fail to kill all three of the targets, we're all counting on _you_ to keep the ship safe while our shields recharge. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good," Misato nodded. "Shinji?"

Shinji looked up, distracted. So much had happened all at once. "Uh, yes Captain?"

"Hold your fire until we've used the Cassius weapon," Misato said. "No need to provoke a counterattack beforehand. If we do miss the first shot, the JA Heavy Armor platoons are going to do whatever they can to slow down the remaining Eva Series until we can charge the next shot. In the event this happens, it'll be up to you to support them. Understood?"

Shinji nodded. "Understood ma'am."

Misato nodded. "Good. Now prepare to transfer control of the Wunder."

As Misato's face disappeared from the screen, Shinji exhaled sharply.

"Whew," he sighed, relieved that Misato hadn't said anything more about what he and Rei had been doing.

Just thinking about it brought color to his cheeks. Why must Rei be so confusing?

"Ayanami…?" he said. "I mean, uh…Rei?"

"I must apologize, Shinji," she said, not turning to look at him. "I allowed my feelings to get the better of me. It will not happen again."

She glanced back at him, smiling gently.

"Thank you…for using my first name."

Shinji blinked, not sure how to respond to that. "Oh…uh, sure."

"We should talk of this later, Shinji," she nodded, back to business. "Now let us synchronize."

Shinji nodded, closing his eyes. He tried not to think about what Rei had just tried to do, and focused instead on what she had said. He concentrated on the true meaning behind her words - that underneath the surface, she was still the same Rei that he remembered from back in the day. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. All those wordless moments that had passed between them, all those unspoken thoughts left unshared…if this was the reflection of what Rei truly felt inside, then he could live with that. As long as she was herself, then he would stand with her.

The the more he was able to think of her that way, the better he was able to synchronize, matching his thoughts to hers as they both simultaneously assumed control of the Wunder.

Both of their eyes opened as the link was established, and both spoke out simultaneously.

"I have control!"

* * *

The three Eva Series emerged from the sea like the trio of shambling monsters that they were. All three bore the grey and green armor of their brethren, their helms laden with the bifurcated horn and visor of the Mark.06.

As soon as the rear two units emerged from the sea, Misato gave the order for Rei to start her approach. As the AAA Wunder got into position a good distance away from their targets, swooping in from the side at a wide, low angle, the bridge crew watched in growing tension.

Everyone on deck had acted appropriately surprised to see Misato return to her post not one day after resigning, but in truth, none had been all too shocked. They knew their Captain well enough to know that she couldn't stay away from all this for long. Most were simply glad that she seemed to have made a full recovery.

"I really wish I was the one doing this run," Nagara said, gripping the control yokes at her station, despite having no control over the ship.

"The Wunder's S2 drive offers much more maneuverability than its AT drive," Misato said from her position behind her. "We may need to get out of dodge in a real hurry, and to do that, we need Rei at the helm."

Nagara clenched her teeth. She knew all this of course, but it did not make her any happier.

"Look on the bright side," Misato said dryly, crossing her arms. "The ship may go crazy again and we'll have to override the controls. Then it'll all be in your hands, Nagara. Won't that be fun?"

The Lieutenant Commander suppressed a shudder. "Don't remind me…"

"AT field running at optimal capacity!" Lieutenant Takao reported. "We're ready to activate the Cassius weapon on your mark, Captain."

"Assuming it even works," Lieutenant Tama chimed in.

"Main weapons systems primed," Lieutenant Kitamaki reported. "For all the good they'll do against those things."

"JA Heavy Armor units are in position," Lieutenant Commander Ibuki added. "Asuka and Mari are ready to jump in at a moment's notice."

Misato nodded. "Very good."

She pressed a button, bringing up a communication screen, revealing Dr. Akagi and about a dozen other technicians working in an elaborate control room along the dorsal structure, just beneath the AT distribution array.

"Ritsuko, we're ready to activate the weapon," Misato announced.

Ritsuko nodded and shouted to her men.

"You heard her, gentlemen! Prime the reflectors and prepare to redistribute the AT projection to the ship's bow!"

As everyone scrambled to set up the shot, the ship drew nearer to its targets. By now, all three Evangelions had left the ocean and were beginning to trod towards Outpost Zion. Oddly, their speed had not increased by much, though now that they were unencumbered by water, their strides were much less labored. Still, it was as if they were in no particular hurry, which was odd, considering how fast the previous attack had been. Perhaps they were attempting a new tactic.

"This will work, right Captain?" Hyuga looked up from his post to give Misato a concerned look.

Misato sighed. She didn't know the answer. She didn't know the answer to anything anymore. All she could do was trust that the people around her were ready, and let the chips fall where they may.

She gave him a reassuring smile. If it was a matter of trusting her comrades, those were odds she would wager on.

"If it doesn't," she said dryly, "Then we're going to have to keep the Eva Series busy for twenty minutes while Zion's weapon recharges. Let's hope the pilots are up to the task."

"Captain," Shigeru called out. "We'll be within firing distance in thirty seconds."

"AT output steady!" Takao hollered.

"Targets still maintaining course!" Tama added.

"We're right on target," Nagara observed. She had to admit, whatever her origins or intentions, Rei was a natural at flying.

Misato looked back towards the communication display with Ritsuko.

"How are we doing, Ritsu?"

Ritsuko pursed her lips, eyes staring off screen at her own display.

"Focusing outputs," she gritted her teeth. "Another fifteen seconds…"

All hands braced themselves as they neared the targets. Around the ship, their AT field glowed prominently, bits and pieces slowly fading out from the rear of the ship to cluster around the frontal portion. Off in the distance, hidden just behind the horizon, Outpost Zion was running through a similar procedure, its AT barrier slowly unspreading from around the base to focus into a single point.

"Ten seconds…"

The targets continued to march forward, heedless of the destruction coming their way.

"Five seconds…"

Misato bit her tongue as they flew forward. They were close enough to start making out details on the Eva's armor now. It seemed impossible that the Eva Series would fail to notice them! The base's firing distance must have been significantly longer than the ship's for them to have to come so close. Though she supposed firing while moving had something to do with it.

"Three…two…one…"

Suddenly, the nearest Eva Series turned its head, its visor glowing bright red.

"Fire!" Misato shouted, slamming her fist into the master trigger.

The monster and the ship let loose with their attacks in the same instant. A beam of pure energy emitted from the Eva's eyes, while a lance of absolute terror materialized in front of the Wunder's condensed AT field and shot out towards its target.

At the same instant, Rei nudged the Wunder just slightly to the left. It was not much, but it was just enough to allow them to avoid taking a direct hit from the Eva's attack, letting it blow past the ship's hull and just over its right wing. But the movement was also enough to throw the two targets out of alignment.

_"Do not crash this ship,"_ Maya had told her.

The artificial Spear of Cassius hit the Eva behind the one that attacked them, as a heartbeat later, another spear came sailing over the horizon from the direction of Outpost Zion, skewering the lead Eva through the chest. Both war machines let out a grievous roar, before shutting down and collapsing to the ground.

The third Eva - the one that had fired upon them - remained standing.

* * *

"Did we get them?" Shinji asked adamantly.

As the dust cleared, the answer became apparent as a single Eva Series continued to glare at the Wunder, heedless of its fallen brethren, its eyes glowing red again.

"One target remaining!" Misato shouted over the comm. "Rei, we have _no_ shields! Break off the attack! Evasive maneuvers, now!"

Shinji gripped his control yokes tightly as Rei took the Wunder into an aileron roll, it's wings swiveling in opposite directions, and rolling left to dodge the Eva's next attack.

It seemed that, for all her changes, Rei's flying still made him ill.

"Urgh!" Shinji grunted as Rei turned the Wunder sideways, flapping its wings downward to drive the Wunder out towards the sea, slowly leveling out as another blast from the Eva's optical beam sailed overhead.

"What's the status of our AT field?" Misato demanded to her bridge crew.

"Charging," one of the crew-members said - Takao if Shinji remembered correctly. "It's recharging faster than we anticipated! We'll be at optimal capacity in just five minutes!"

"Finally, some good news!" Misato said. "Maya, deploy JA platoons. Rei, Shinji, keep the Eva's attention on _us!_ Good idea keeping the ship over the water - if we can lure it away from the base, that will give Zion that much more time to recharge."

Shinji nodded. "Aye ma'am!"

As if reading his intentions, Rei banked hard to give Shinji a firing solution, which he took eagerly, focusing all his attention on the Eva Series. The view screen around the entry plug flashed bright red as the Wunder's optical cannons returned fire on the Eva, impacting the slower moving target with a burst of vibrant crimson, which erupted into a cross shaped pillar of light.

The Eva shrugged off the attack and charged forward. It had been moving slowly before, but the presence of an enemy seemed to have spurned it, and the Eva took a fantastic leap through the air, its feet splashing into the shallows of the coastline, the water coming up to its waist.

"It is coming for us!" Rei warned.

Shinji nodded and fired again, but this time the Eva dodged the attack, leaping out of the way, flying through the air towards them.

Rei dodged the Eva's arc easily, and the Eva landed in the water with a great splash, disappearing beneath the waves.

"Target lost!" a female voice sounded from the bridge - Kitakami was it?

Shinji studied the water, and just as she'd said, the Eva was nowhere to be seen below the rolling waves. The water was too choppy to make out anything below.

"Stay alert, Shinji," Rei warned.

"You too," he said in return, eyes fixated on the reflective surface of the water. "You may not want to fly so close to the-"

Shinji was cut off as the Eva suddenly leaped out of the water almost directly beneath them, coming right for the Wunder.

Rei kicked the ship forward, but the Eva managed to grab the Wunder by the tail, clinging to the ship like a wasp taking down airborne prey.

"The Eva's latched onto us!" an alarmed voice sounded from the bridge. It sounded like Hyuga.

"Rei, you have to shake this thing off of us!" Misato ordered. "We can't use our Cassius weapon on it if it's _inside_ our AT field!"

"Understood!" Rei replied.

Shinji cringed as Rei took the Wunder through a series twists and turns, flips and flops, and even a Crazy Ivan. Its wings allowed the Wunder to maneuver in ways no aircraft could do. And still the Eva would not let go.

"Hurgh!" Shinji placed a hand over his mouth, trying not to throw up. These maneuvers were taking their toll on him.

"Rei!" Misato grunted in pain from her comm station. Apparently, they were taking their toll on the rest of the bridge as well. "The crew can't withstand these G-forces! Try something else!"

Rei leveled out, eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

Shinji felt rather than saw the Eva beginning to climb the length of the ship's skeletal tail towards their vulnerable underbelly.

"Rei!" he shouted worriedly.

Rei gritted her teeth and swooped down towards the water, before whipping back upward, flipping the ship's tail downward and into the ocean, attempting to bat the Eva off by flicking the massive skyscraper sized limb through the water.

Still the Eva retained its grip.

Rei attempted this several more times before a familiar face appeared on her screen.

It was Asuka.

"Hey Lobotomy Girl!" Asuka crowed snarkily. "Why don't you swing by the coastline and let us lend a hand with your Eva problem?"

Shinji blinked in surprise. "Asuka?"

Rei narrowed her eyes in concentration, before nodding. She quickly located the position of Asuka and Mari's JA units and banked hard to swerve towards them.

Shinji saw the two units standing out on the beach, the rest of WILLE's hundred and fifty units stationed behind them. As they approached the red and pink unit, he saw pylons extending from their legs, driving down deeply into the sand to give them extra traction, as each unit aimed a shoulder-mounted grappling claw at the Wunder.

As the ship flew past them, both units fired off their grappling hooks, both of which clung to the Eva Series on the ship's tail. As the ship blew past, the Eva let out a roar of frustration as the grappling lines pulled taut, the two JA units seizing up from the tension as they both held firm. The beast let out a final roar as it detached from the Wunder's tail, leaving a red stain behind where it had begun corroding the Wunder's hull into core material.

With a climactic splash, the Eva fell back down into the shallows, entangled by the two units grappling lines.

"Pull!" Asuka shouted as the two units unclamped from the Earth and sped off in opposite directions along the beach, keeping the Eva entrapped as it slowly got to its feet.

As it stood, the two lines forced it back onto land, one wrapped around its neck, the other around its waist, pulling in opposite directions. The mighty beast let out a roar of anger as the two units held it in place.

With an enraged growl, it fell on all fours, struggling for purchase. Finally it turned its head upward, eyes glowing red, as it aimed its optical cannon at the red JA unit that had seized it by the neck.

"Princess!" Mari shouted in alarm. "Look out!"

The Wunder then swerved back around to take aim with its own optical cannon.

"Oh, no you don't!" Shinji shouted and fired.

The Eva took the blast in the flank, toppling over, screaming with outrage as its own attack flew wildly into the air.

"Cutting it kind of close there, Shinji!" Asuka hollered, though the accusation did not sound heartfelt.

The Eva flailed wildly as the grappling cables forced it onto its back, kicking up dirt and sand and stone as it clawed the Earth.

"Now's our chance!" Maya shouted. "Kamikaze squad! Move in!"

About fifty JA units, mostly older models and those missing limbs and other parts from the previous fight, suddenly tackled the fallen beast. Asuka and Mari released their grappling cables and fled as one by one, the JA suicide units threw themselves onto the Eva until its gray-green armor was nowhere to be seen.

"Dog pile!" Mari crowed, as she and Asuka dove for cover.

Maya signaled the units' self destruct sequence, and all fifty nuclear reactors went off at once, sending a massive plume of fire into the sky on top of the Eva. The ground shook, and the shock wave was big enough to throw the Wunder back by several kilometers.

"Target status?" Misato demanded.

"The blast knocked out our instruments," Kitakami reported. "It will take them a moment to come back online."

As the blast subsided and the smoke began to clear, however, the Eva Series, its armor mostly charred off, climbed back to its feet, growling angrily.

"Target is still standing!" Tama cried.

Misato grunted. "Of course it is. What's the status of our AT fields?"

"Nearly fully charged!" Takao replied.

"Alright," Misato nodded. "Ritsuko, prepare to fire the Cassius weapon!"

"Aye ma'am!" the doctor replied.

"Ibuki, break off the JA attack!" Misato commanded.

"Asuka! Mari! Fall back!" Maya repeated to her two pilots.

"Already on it!" Mari replied.

"Rei, swing in for another attack run!" Misato continued. "Shinji, keep that thing busy until we can get a shot in!"

Even as she spoke, the Wunder swung around for another attack as its AT field began to focus forward, the Eva scanning its surroundings for more targets.

Shinji was happy to oblige. The Wunder fired its optical cannons, striking the Eva Series directly in the face. The blast actually knocked it over and impacted somewhere behind it.

"Fifteen seconds to charge!"

The Eva slowly got to its feet and issued a challenging roar back at the Wunder, whose AT field now only covered its front.

"Ten seconds!"

The Wunder fired again, this time hitting dead center. As the debris cleared, the Eva seemed largely unaffected by the attack, standing there, glaring in rage.

"Five!"

The Eva fired back.

"Four!"

Rei dodged right.

"Three!"

The blast sailed past the ship.

"Two!"

The ship leveled off and took aim.

"One!"

Misato slammed her fist into the big red button that controlled the Cassius weapon.

"_Fire!_"

The single hexagon of absolute terror energy hovering just in front of the Wunder's nose suddenly extended forward from the center into a single vector of bright red light, and just as quickly darted forward towards the Eva Series. With a sudden, loud _clang_, the spear penetrated the Eva's torso, and it feel backwards onto the spear point, which sunk into the earth and quickly cooled to a dull red, its limp body balancing against the lance of energy as it powered down.

Not a stone's throw away, the other two Eva Series lay similarly subdued, the spears of energy embedded in them already subsiding into nothingness.

Shinji sat back in his pilot's seat.

The battle was over.

* * *

The launch bays were a bustle of activity as some ninety-eight JA heavy armor units were ushered back into their individual docks one by one. All around, hurrying technicians and massive mechanical arms carrying replacement parts, massive tools and other heavy equipment swung around at breakneck speed to ready for the next inevitable confrontation.

Two JA units stood out from the others, however.

"Hah!" Asuka crowed as she leaped out of the cockpit of her mech and onto the scaffolding catwalk. "Did you see that? I kicked ass out there!"

Mari, whose mech resided on the opposite side of the scaffolding allowing the units to be boarded, just rolled her eyes. "Always so cocky, Princess. One day, it's going to get you in a lot of trouble."

Asuka stuck out her tongue. "Oh, be quiet! You're just jealous! It doesn't matter if it's an Eva, a Jet Alone, or an F-22! I was _born_ to pilot!"

Mari chuckled as the two of them boarded the open elevator, metal grating sliding in place before the small, metallic car slowly made its way to the floor level, the two massive JA units slowly sliding into place behind them.

"I'm just worried about getting Unit 02+08 up and running," Mari admitted. "The Doctor's right about one thing - our sync scores are kind of pathetic. We really need to step up our game, Princess."

Asuka crossed her arms, pursing her lips. "If I didn't know any better, Four-Eyes, I'd think you were blaming me for our sync problems."

Mari blinked. "I wasn't blaming you, Princess. We're _both_ responsible for this."

"Yeah, right," the redhead snorted. "I could hear it in your voice! You think you could _totally_ pilot that thing all by yourself if only your annoying red-headed co-pilot wasn't such a stubborn ass!"

Mari gave her an incredulous look. "Princess, you've seriously got to stop suspecting me of every little thing!"

Asuka rolled her one eye. "Oh, yeah, cause _I'm_ the irrational one here. Out of the two of us, which one very nearly committed treason?"

"I'm not asking you to understand my reasons, Princess," Mari crossed her arms. "I'm _asking_ you to trust me. We're supposed to be friends here!"

Asuka blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Some friend you are…"

Mari gave her friend a wounded look.

"Don't do this, Asuka…" she muttered softly. "Don't ruin this. You're the single greatest pilot I've ever seen."

Asuka's eyebrow went up at that. "…What did you say?"

Mari looked out across the launch bay as their elevator proceeded downward, the machinery of their entire armor force in full motion beyond.

"Look…" she sighed. "I know how much you love piloting Eva. I feel the same way. When I'm inside an entry plug, I feel powerful. Omnipotent. I feel like I actually have control over my own destiny."

Asuka stared aghast, not used to hearing such honesty from the other girl.

"You and I both know a Jet Alone is no comparison to the experience of being inside an Eva," she breathed. "Right now, Unit 02+08 represents our only chance to really get back out there."

She turned to give Asuka an earnest smile, looking like she was on the verge of tears.

"You're too good of a pilot to be relegated to a hunk of junk," she shook her head, sighing. "I can't bear to see that potential go to waste. And I sure as hell don't want to be stuck piloting these things any more than I have to."

Mari swallowed and closed her eyes.

"The only way we get back out there is by working together," she hiccuped. "I'm sorry I've been such a priss lately. I know it must sound desperate, but I need you, Asuka. And like it or not, you need me. If _you_ don't get to pilot Eva, then neither do _I_. I'm trusting you with my hopes and dreams here. Can't you at least find a way to trust me too?"

Asuka stared at the other girl like she was a completely different person. She was speechless. Had Mari actually apologized to her? Had she actually said something serious for once?

"I…" Asuka stammered, still lost for words. "I guess that's fair…"

Mari wiped a small trickle of wetness from her eyelid. "So what do you say? Friends?"

Asuka nodded and held up her hand. "Heh…alright. Friends."

The two of them clasped hands, squeezing hard, and were smiling like idiots by the time the elevator reached the lower platform. It felt good to finally put all that behind them. A lot had been happening lately, and tensions were getting higher with each passing day. They didn't have the luxury of time to be spending on petty spats anymore. They were a lot more valuable to each other as copilots then they were as a rivals.

No sooner had they left the elevator when both of their radio's buzzed at the same time.

"_Pilots Shikinami and Makinami, report to the bridge of the Wunder,_" Misato's voice said simply over the comm. "_I repeat, pilots-_"

The two girls exchanged a look and smirked.

"Seems WILLE can't get _anything_ done without us," Mari stuck out her tongue.

Asuka snorted, good-naturedly. "Well, let's not keep them waiting then."

The two of them hurried off to the Wunder's dry-dock.

"So I'm really the best pilot you've ever seen?" Asuka asked as they walked.

"Well, except for when I'm looking in the mirror," Mari smirked back. "Then this other pilot shows up who's just so much more awesome."

Asuka rolled her eyes. She supposed it was too much to hope for Mari to be serious for much longer.

"Oh really?" Asuka retorted. "How close to you have to stand to the mirror to see this pilot?"

"Ah, near-sighted jokes," Mari stuck out her tongue. "Classy. You of all people should know better than to rely on eye-related humor."

"Heh, that's what you think!" Asuka crowed. "Even with just one eye, I can still see better than you can!"

"Sure thing, Princess," Mari snickered. "Want to know the difference between a kiss-ass and a brown noser? Depth perception."

"Ohhhh, clever…clever…" Asuka laughed. "Joke's on you, though. Eye-patches totally kick ass! Way more bad-ass than your nerdy little glasses!"

"Sure," Mari laughed back. "And if you ever need to dress up like a slutty pirate, you're only halfway there."

"Hey, better a slutty pirate than a slutty librarian," Asuka stuck out her tongue.

"You know, I think I just might have to try that," Mari said, before holding her hands up in a mocking impression. "'Oh, Shinji, I just want you to ravish me on this pile of books!'"

Asuka snorted, eye clenched with laughter. "Oh God, stop! I think I'm going to die!"

"Heh," Mari winked. "She thinks I'm kidding! Where's the Puppy-Boy? I want to see what he thinks of the idea!"

"Oh, don't you dare!" Asuka yelped, giving her an incredulous look.

"What's the matter, Princess?" she stuck her tongue out. "Want him all to yourself?"

"Damn it, Four-Eyes!" Asuka growled, chasing after her, Mari laughing all the while. "Come back here!"

* * *

It had been a while since Shinji had been to the bridge of the Wunder. The last time he had been there had been the day he'd woken up from fourteen years of hibernation. The faces that had greeted him then had been cold, distant and unforgiving.

Even Misato.

Now, the faces that greeted him were not quite so harsh. It was not exactly a welcoming feeling, meeting the stares of each of the surrounding crew, but there was a very real feeling of pride in the air. They had just won a battle that should have been impossible. And it was a battle in which he had played a significant part.

And most importantly of all, he had been fighting on the right side.

The Wunder was once again docked at Lillin Outpost Zion. The hundred or so remaining JA Heavy Armor units had returned to their launch bays, and Asuka and Mari had not even had time for a shower before they had both been ordered aboard the Wunder to join the bridge crew for the briefing. Rei, Sakura and Ritsuko had also gathered to watch as Shinji was escorted up to the Captain's platform, wearing his borrowed WILLE uniform, where he met Misato face to face for the first time since she had awoken from her catatonic state. A state, he believed, that he had been responsible for putting her in.

He couldn't help but remember the first time he had seen her up here. It was her eyes that had hurt him most of all that day. What should have been a warm, welcoming gaze had been turned into utter hatred.

But now, those eyes were calm. At peace. Accepting.

"Shinji," she spoke simply.

Shinji, not knowing what this was all about, simply looked back at her.

"Yes, Captain?" he responded.

Misato returned his gaze.

"I can never forgive you for what you've done," she explained simply.

There was no anger in her voice. No hatred. No bitterness. Just a simple statement of the truth.

"Some crimes go beyond redemption," she went on. "Your guilt for Third Impact will remain with you unto your dying breath. And your actions towards bringing about Fourth Impact on top of all that cannot be overlooked."

Shinji bit his tongue, but said nothing. A shiver ran through his spine however. Something about this gathering suggested that some kind of ultimatum was being decided, and if this was to be the verdict, then he saw his future prospects quickly dwindling.

Misato sighed and took off her hat.

"That being said…the way you've been treated up until now was also wrong."

Shinji blinked in surprise. Was he actually hearing this?

"C-Captain?"

"Your actions may have been criminal, Shinji," she went on. "But your intentions, both then and now, have proven to be anything but. We also cannot discount NERV's influence on your behavior. Acting upon a lie is foolishness, but it is not in itself an act of evil. And in spite of everything that's happened to you, both at NERV's hands and at ours, you have still fought alongside WILLE in a time of need. Without your cooperation, none of us would be here right now. That too cannot be overlooked."

She returned her hat to her head.

"With the proper guidance and training, Shinji, I believe you may continue to be an asset to us all," Misato said. "So I ask you now: will you continue to fight with us?"

Shuddering and at a loss for words, Shinji could only nod his head.

"Y-Yes ma'am!"

Misato nodded. Not smiling, not frowning. Her expression was one of plain and simple acceptance.

"Then let's make this official."

She gestured for Asuka to come forward, who approached as bidden and withdrew a blue sash from her pocket.

Then, to his surprise, every officer on the bridge stood up from their chairs, eyes remaining on him.

"Shinji," Misato said as Asuka stood beside her. "Do you swear to hold true to WILLE and all of its ideals? To honor your commanding officers, and conduct yourself in a manner befitting your position therein? Do you swear to oppose NERV and everything that it stands for? To do everything in your power to prevent another Impact from ravaging the Earth? And above all, do you swear to fight for the protection and preservation of humanity, even at the cost of your own life, so help you God?"

Shinji shuddered as he felt the eyes of the entire crew around him. He could tell just by looking at them that each and every one of them had made such a pledge when they too were accepted into WILLE.

Shinji swallowed hard.

After this, there could be no turning back.

"I swear."

Misato nodded. "Good."

At her words, Asuka stepped forward and began tying the blue sash around his left arm. Shinji watched her as she did, but she did not meet his gaze when he looked at her, and simply concentrated on her task as Misato continued.

"With this emblem, we do so identify you as a member of WILLE," she said, as each of the crew around them saluted somberly. "With this emblem, we mark our solemn vow to restore the world to what it once was. With this emblem, we forever denounce the institution of NERV and all of its crimes. And with this emblem, we honor those whose lives were lost in pursuit of this quest. Theirs was a noble sacrifice, and with this emblem, we remember all for which they fought and died to protect."

Despite the number of heads held high, Shinji heard the sound of someone crying behind him. He glanced around and saw Sakura, eyes full of tears.

Toji. She was crying for her brother.

Shinji set his teeth. How many of his friends were dead because of his mistake? He could not ignore his responsibility to them any longer. He decided then and there that, for the sake of Toji's memory, and for everyone else who was no longer with them, he would not fail.

Asuka finished tying the sash.

"Don't read too much into this, Shinji," she whispered haughtily, still not making eye contact. "You're still a brat."

Shinji smiled nervously. "Thanks Asuka."

She turned away from him a little too abruptly.

"Idiot…" she muttered.

She had not turned quite fast enough to hide the blush on her cheeks.

Asuka stepped away, indignantly, and then Shinji was alone at the center of the bridge with all eyes upon him.

The rest of the crew seemed to expect him to do something.

Not knowing what else to do, Shinji bowed his head.

"Raise your head, Shinji," Misato said gently.

Shinji blinked and quickly straightened, wondering what he had done wrong.

Misato responded with a slow, demonstrative salute.

Shinji got the message and saluted in return.

Misato nodded. "Good. Ensign Ikari, you are to report to Lieutenant Commander Ibuki tomorrow at oh-six-hundred hours to continue with your training. Pilots, dismissed."

As the other pilots turned to go, Shinji hesitated, his fingers coming up to the choker around his neck.

"What about…?" he said, trailing off.

Misato's expression softened. "I'm sorry Shinji, but the choker must remain where it is."

Shinji looked crestfallen. "But…"

"I've destroyed the trigger," Misato interrupted. "Your life no longer rests in WILLE's hands. The only way it will activate now is by being inside an Evangelion that sets off another Impact. And it is exactly such an incident that you have just pledged your life to prevent. It is your duty now to carry this burden with you until such time as it is no longer needed."

Shinji had to stop himself from crying. This was his penance, he knew. From now until their mission succeeded, or the day he died, he would have to bear this responsibility.

This he understood.

This he must accept.

"Wear your promise proudly, Shinji," Misato nodded somberly. "You owe your life to the world now."

* * *

End of Part 2

A/N: Taking a (hopefully) short break to plan out Part 3.

Special thanks go out to Attila1987 for proofreading each chapter I've published thus far. There would be a lot more inconsistencies than there already are without your help. It's people like you who really keep me on the ball!


	18. Second Interlude

**Evangelion Fan Fiction**

**Reticence**

By Kraven Ergeist

Interlude

* * *

Shinji had taken to having his meals in the off-hours ever since the incident in the hallway. The nutrient paste dispensary was automated, so the ship's crew was pretty much allowed to eat anytime they wanted. Taking precautions to avoid the crew as much as possible, Shinji was taking his dinner close to midnight most nights. Though, to be fair, ever since he had donned the arm-band, he noticed very few open acts of aggression from the general crew. He still got a lot of cold shoulders and the occasional sour look, but everyone knew that the Captain had sworn him in. This meant that any mistreatment would result in disciplinary measures from _her_. And Misato's punishments tended to have much more permanent ramifications than even Asuka's, so people mostly left him alone.

Which was just the way he wanted it.

He hadn't seen a lot of Rei ever since the battle. Ritsuko and Misato had been picking her brain almost non-stop since her latest development, and while the two of them had a regular amount of time to themselves during the Wunder's training exercises and patrol routes, those had become largely silent as of late. They were not technically private in there, so he had not been comfortable discussing anything with an audience. And as soon as they were over, Ritsuko tended to whisk Rei off to the briefing room to once again resume their dialogue, leaving Shinji to his own devices.

If he was perfectly honest with himself, however, he would not have known what to say to her even if they had the time to spare. Things had become increasingly awkward between them ever since that incident in the entry plug before the last battle. He hadn't been sure what to think about that. He was sure Misato had seen them, but so far she hadn't said anything about it. It made tiptoeing around the Captain's gaze all the more uncomfortable.

Also noticeably absent of late were Asuka and Mari. When the two of them weren't strategizing with Maya on future JA deployment, they were running sync tests for Unit 02+08's dual entry system. While he was not particularly eager to see Mari again after her subterfuge, he would have liked to have gotten a chance to talk to Asuka at least, now that he was a full member. He hadn't seen more than the occasional passing glance in the hallway as she made her way to her next destination. He hoped she wasn't quite so angry with him anymore, but his hopes were not high.

The only person who he saw on a regular basis anymore, besides his Captain and the Doctor, was second Lieutenant Suzuhara, who still felt guilty about the incident in the hallway that she had neglected to prevent, and had taken it upon herself to keep on eye on him whenever possible.

"I'm telling you, it's fine," Shinji assured her from across the table in the mess hall as he prodded the gelatinous blob that was _supposed_ to taste like chicken on his tray. The two of them had this conversation about once a day now, but Sakura simply did not seem capable of forgiving herself.

Sakura pouted, unconvinced, as she always did. The mess hall was vacant but for the two of them, so they were speaking much more openly than they otherwise would have been.

"Shinji, I deliberately stopped Ayanami from following you!" she argued. "If I hadn't stopped her, she'd have been there with you!"

"That's a good thing," he replied. "You probably saved her from getting hurt too."

"And if she had been there, those punks might have thought twice about attacking you!"

Shinji absently tongued the dark split in his lower lip that still hadn't quite healed, and never fully would.

"I can take responsibility for my own actions, Sakura," Shinji said resolutely. "I was reckless, and I paid the price. None of that is your fault."

"Nevertheless," she argued, "I was lapse in my duty, and I will take it upon myself to make it up to you."

Shinji just sighed. He had yet to win this argument, and he doubted now would be any different.

He tensed as he heard the sound of voices out in the hallway - thus far, he had managed to avoid running into any of the crew during his meals - but relaxed a little when he saw Asuka and Mari making their way to the mess hall.

As he wondered idly what they were doing here at such a late hour, Sakura perked up and waved to the two pilots.

"Captain Shikinami! Makinami!" she called out. "What are you two doing here so late?"

Asuka's back stiffened after seeing Shinji seated at one of the tables, though whether it was from irritation or some other emotion, he couldn't be sure.

Mari simply waved back enthusiastically.

"Hi, Suzuhara!" she beamed. "Just stopping by for a midnight snack."

"Well, why don't you come sit with us?" Sakura offered.

Shinji and Asuka _both _flinched at that.

"Thanks!" Mari answered before either could protest. "We'll be right there."

Shinji watched as, whispering to each other, the two of them immediately went to the dessert dispenser, which seeped out a creamy, white, frosty substance onto their trays that was supposed to taste like vanilla ice cream. Having tried it on occasion, Shinji's generous assessment was that it tasted more like a milk flavored snow-cone. Both girls loaded up their trays, grabbed their spoons, and sat down next to Sakura, across from Shinji.

Both of them were wearing plug suits, Shinji noticed. Asuka also had her hat and jacket over her plug suit. They must have been testing well into the night. Dr. Akagi had been training the two of them really hard lately. Something having to do with Rei's prediction of the next NERV attack, he gathered.

"Well, I suppose there's no helping it," Asuka sighed in resignation, clearly still somewhat off-put by their company.

Mari smirked. "Don't be like that, Princess! The more the merrier, right?"

Asuka grumbled and stuck a spoonful of imitation ice cream in her mouth, mumbling incoherently.

"So, um…" Shinji asked, meekly. "How did the activation tests go?"

He knew the answer of course, but he didn't know how else to make conversation at that moment.

"Went off without a hitch, of course," Asuka said dismissively. "I should expect nothing else! WILLE now has a functioning Eva again. Well, half of one anyway."

Mari puffed out her chest, still clearly excited at the prospect of getting to pilot an Eva again. "What are you talking about, Princess? Unit 02+08 is going to be twice as good as either of its predecessors!"

"Yeah right," Asuka rolled her eyes. "Unit 08 is barely half the mech that Unit 02 was."

"You're joking, right?" Mari shot back humorously. "Unit 02 was already missing an arm and half its face, that was _before_ the merging!"

Asuka's face reddened as she looked away. "Sh-shut up!"

Mari just snickered in amusement, before her eyes widened as something over Shinji's shoulder piqued her interest.

"Well, well," she smiled mischievously. "Don't look now, but it appears we have even more company."

Shinji looked over his shoulder and saw another figure standing just inside the mess hall by the doorway. She had on her WILLE uniform, as well as a DSS choker. But he also noticed a blue sash around her arm.

"Rei!" Shinji blurted, completely taken aback.

Asuka raised an eyebrow.

"Since when do you call her 'Rei?'" she asked.

Shinji blushed. "Oh, um…I uh…"

Rei saved him the embarrassment by speaking up.

"I was wondering if I might join you," she asked, demurely. "If that would not be too inconvenient. It is my understanding that dining with others can be a pleasant experience, after all."

Sakura beamed at that. "Of course, Ayanami! Come on over!"

Mari raised her spoon towards the blue haired girl, mouth full of imitation ice cream. "Yay, now it's a _real_ party!"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Fine, sure, whatever."

As Rei sat next to Shinji, who tried his hardest not to make eye contact with her. As different as she was from her previous self, he still felt himself drawn to the same qualities she had always had. But Fuyutsuki's words still echoed in the back of his mind, and he found himself paralyzed by the conflict.

Asuka observed his behavior with veiled interest, but was apparently not subtle enough to avoid being noticed by Mari.

"Aww, you pretend to be such a hard-ass, but really you're just a big ol' softie, Princess!" Mari laughed, throwing her arm around the redhead.

"Am not!" Asuka complained, leaning away, face reddening.

"Sure you are!" Mari said

She threw Shinji a wink, before snatching Asuka's hat from her head.

"You should have heard how happy she was when you found this hat for her, Puppy-Boy!"

Asuka's eyes widened as she made a grab for it.

"Hey!" she blurted in a panic. "Give me that! I _told_ you not to tell anyone about that!"

Mari shied away as Asuka came at her, delighting in her game of keep-away like a playful animal.

Sakura frowned. "Come on, Makinami, don't be mean."

"Nah-ah-ah!" she teased. "Not until she tells Shinji where it came from!"

"Damn it, Four-Eyes!" Asuka cried, sounding more distressed than she should have been about a simple accessory. "Give it _back!_"

"Makinami," Shinji said in a low, cautioning voice, looking right at her.

Mari blinked at the sound of his voice and sobered a little at the look he gave her. Wordlessly, she surrendering her prize.

Asuka snatched the hat back, clutching it possessively, throwing Shinji a fleeting but sincere look of gratitude.

Shinji could not help but be confused by Asuka's behavior. There was obviously a story behind that hat, but it was just as obvious that she wasn't willing to share it just yet. And Shinji was not one to overstep his boundaries.

"Really, Makinami," Shinji sighed, softly. "Do you have to be such an instigator?"

Mari stuck out her tongue and pawed the air. "Nya!"

Before anyone else could venture a comment, Sakura suddenly shot to her feet.

"Captain on deck!" she cried, standing upright and rigid.

The rest of the crew wheeled around to see Captain Katsuragi making her way into the mess hall.

"Should have known it was you guys making all that noise," Misato grumbled, sleepily, wearing her usual ensemble, minus the red hat and coat. "What's all the commotion about?"

"Pilots Shikinami and Makinami were having another spat," Rei spoke up before anyone else could think of a proper response. "We are sorry to have disturbed you, Captain."

Misato shrugged. "It's not a problem. Just killing time anyway."

She made her way towards the group, observing them curiously.

"Would you mind if I sat down?"

Sakura tensed, concern evident in her voice. "Oh, Captain, you shouldn't feel obligated to babysit."

"Relax," Misato offered a sardonic expression. "The Captain just wants to enjoy some downtime with her crew. I'm allowed, right?"

Of course, no one would outright refuse her request, so she sat down in the last free seat beside Rei.

"We were just having a debate about which one was the better Eva," Shinji offered, trying to steer the conversation back towards something less touchy, for Asuka's sake. "Unit 02 or Unit 08."

Asuka, seeming to read his mind, leaped at the chance to change the subject back to a safer topic. "It's not even a contest! Unit 02 trumps every other model in its generation!"

Mari crossed her arms. "It was long since out-dated by the time Unit 08 came around. Unit 08's the more advanced model by far!"

Misato mused, pensively. "Unit 08's frame is more durable, but Unit 02 has the higher output, so personally, I'd put them about neck and neck."

Asuka and Mari listened intently to the Captain's assessment, before throwing each other a competitive smirk.

"Of course, Unit 02 has never been running at optimal capacity since the 10th Angel…" she thought idly out loud. "What with its arm and all."

Asuka grimaced at that, as Mari grinned in triumph.

"I'm just glad we have a functioning Eva again," Sakura sighed in relief. "Another attack like that last one, and our JA units wouldn't have been able to compensate."

Misato nodded, crossing her arms. "We would have found a way."

She threw Shinji a knowing glance.

"We always seem to manage," she sighed, somberly. "Somehow."

Shinji tried to smile back at her, but couldn't maintain eye contact. Her stare was just too familiar, even though he knew it wasn't coming from the same place.

Nothing would ever be the same between the two of them again, he knew. Misato was right. Some crimes went beyond redemption. Some hurts just ran too deep for forgiveness. But at least now, she didn't hate him, or if she did, it wasn't openly. At least now, they could move on. And that was enough for now.

"Pretty soon, we won't need the Pipsqueak _or_ Lobotomy Girl in a fight!" Asuka declared, confidently. "Our Eva's gonna wipe the floor with anything NERV can throw at us!"

"Pipsqueak!?" Shinji demanded, flabbergasted.

"I beg your pardon, Captain Shikinami," Rei interjected. "But I believe my present I.Q. puts me well above the intelligence of the average lobotomy patient."

"Could have fooled me," Asuka retorted. "And if you're not a pipsqueak, Shinji, than what are you?"

"He's a Puppy-Boy, that's what he is!" Mari declared, teasingly.

"Why can't you just call me 'Shinji?'" he asked.

"Too boring," Asuka stuck her tongue out. "Besides, you're still way too green to get anything cool sounding. How about 'Runt?'"

"That's even worse!" Shinji complained.

"Don't be mean, Shikinami!" Sakura chimed in. "Shinji deserves a better nickname than that. What's wrong with 'Puppy-Boy?'"

"_Way_ too cute and cuddly," Asuka said, rolling her eyes dismissively. "Four-Eyes has some weird tastes in nicknames if you ask me."

"I like 'Shinji,'" Rei said simply. "It is who he is, after all."

Shinji just pouted. "Don't _I_ get a say in this?"

Misato let out a sigh as she shook her head in amusement, watching the pilots continue to bicker.

Mari laced her fingers behind her head and leaned back in her chair as Asuka continued to argue with Shinji, a contented smile on her face as she hummed quietly to herself.

"…_and we'll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home~_…"

* * *

A/N: Work's been picking up, so I'm a little behind with planning the next part. Hopefully I'll begin posting new chapters before the end of September, but it will depend on my schedule. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this little interlude.

Stay tuned.


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